Demolition/Restoration Underway at Old Sugar Valley School
LOGANTON — The old Loganton Borough High School is coming down, the adjacent old Sugar Valley High School is being renovated, part of a significant commercial undertaking in Loganton.
A contractor is in the process of demolishing the old Loganton Borough High School, which predates the Loganton fire of 1918. Meanwhile Sam and Salinda Lapp of Loganton, the owners of the 12.3 acre site, have begun renovations at the old Sugar Valley High School building which is attached to the older and long-closed Loganton High School.
Sam Lapp told therecord-online today renovations should be done by February of next year. He said the old high school gym and cafeteria will be converted to a food store; the Lapps presently operate the Scenic Ridge food store in Rauchtown.
He said the newest one-story wing on the building’s south side will house a donut shop and former classrooms there will be available for rent for offices or other commercial development.
The ongoing development follows an extended effort by the Lapps to buy the site from the Keystone Central School District. The district had closed Sugar Valley as a high school nearly two decades ago, followed by closure of the elementary school there as part of consolidation in the southern end of Clinton County.
The school board ultimately put the old school site up for sale and in December of 2013 voted to sell the property to the Lapps, the only bidders. The Lapps had been the only party to submit an offer during the advertised selling period and the board had voted 6-3 to move ahead with the sale to the Lapps despite an eleventh hour offer to match the sale from Sugar Valley resident Jim Harbach.
Harbach and several other objectors later raised their offer to $190,000 as they challenged the district decision at an April 2014 hearing before Clinton County Judge Michael Salisbury. The court approved the sale in an order in May of that year.
The valley residents had claimed they were not aware the property was for sale prior to the board’s December 2013 vote but Salisbury in his court order disagreed with their claim: “The Court finds the Objectors’ position that they were unaware that the property was for sale or available for inspection prior to the December 5, 2013 Board meeting as incredible.”
