Thursday's Internet Edition, March 11, 2010.
still on the market
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Editor -
A real estate agency will soon attempt to find an occupant for the former Walton High School.
The Poca Valley Bank owns the 68-year-old cut stone building, which has stood vacant since June 2008.
“We are in the process of listing it with a Realtor,” Virgil Smyer, a vice president at the bank, said. “Probably by the first of the month, it will be listed.”
Smyer said the building had not been listed previously because the bank thought it had some prospective buyers.
“We really didn’t go into detail because they weren’t going to (finance) it with us,” he said. “I really don’t know what they were going to use it for.”
Walton resident Danny Starcher had the winning bid of $125,000 when the 5.76-acre tract was auctioned in May 2009. However, the deal was never finalized.
Starcher had planned to use part of the basement as a garage while operating an assisted living facility in the former classrooms. Bob Boesch had purchased the building for $100,000 from the Roane Board of Education in 1999, six years after it ceased being a school, and following renovations, opened the Walton Inn assisted living facility.
The Walton Inn had peak numbers of 25 residents and 14 staff members. Financial problems forced Boesch to close after eight years of operation.
Built in 1942 after a fire two years earlier had destroyed its predecessor, the building features gray stone quarried at Zona and hauled to the site. WPA labor was responsible for a majority of construction.
A gym and classrooms, doubling the eight original ones, were added in time for graduation exercises in 1950. Improvements continued with the addition of a new band room in 1981 and a new floor and lighting for the gymnasium three years later.
Walton High closed in the spring of 1993 before becoming part of the new Roane County High School. The building was used as a junior high for a time before those students moved to a renovated elementary school across the Pocatalico River.
Smyer said the building, which has not seen any recent use, was still in good condition. Utilities have not been turned off, and security guards keep watch at the property.
“The upstairs needs some work, but the downstairs is in good shape,” Smyer said. “It’s a nice facility.”
The new asking price for the building will start in the $300,000 to $350,000 range, Smyer predicted.
“I’d love to see something in the community take it,” he said. “It would be a pretty big undertaking and they would have to have a pretty good plan. I can see a lot of possibilities for it.”
The bank has had more recent inquiries about the building, but Smyer would not comment on their level of interest.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said.
