Bank donation heats up renewal efforts at Clark B. Wood building

FALLS VILLAGE — The Clark B. Wood building at the rear of the Housatonic Valley Regional High School campus has received a donation of two propane heating units from Salisbury Bank and Trust, according to Jack Mahoney, vice chairman of the 21st Century Fund’s advisory council.

The 21st Century Fund, a local nonprofit foundation that sponsors learning opportunities for high school students, is helping to bankroll the transformation of the partly dormant building into a state-of-the-art math, science and technology center.

The heating units are from the now-demolished building at the corner of Route 44 and County Road 62 in Millerton, where SBT is building a new branch office.

“Champ� Perotti of the North Canaan heating and plumbing company, and an active participant in the Wood project, saw the two units and “figured they had at least 10 years left in them,� said Brenda Fife, a marketing executive with the bank.

“They are hot air furnaces, about 8 years old,� said Perotti. “Not really appropriate for a bank.�

Perotti said that the units would each cost about $2,300 new.

“Eventually we’re going to go green� at the science and technology building, he added. “But these will be more than adequate in the interim.�

Mahoney said the machines will “heat the big open space in the science and technology area,� which is about 600 square feet.

The area where the heaters will go hasn’t been emptied yet. Mahoney said that on May 1 material stored in the building will be removed.

“We hope to be open for business on Sept. 1,� he said.

Named after the founder of the school’s agriculture education program, the facility at the rear of the campus was supposed to be torn down when the new agicultural education (ag-ed) complex was completed in 2001.

But a group of ag-ed teachers and alumni and some local officials, including ag-ed department co-chair Mark Burdick and former Falls Village First Selectman Louis Timolat, fought hard to save the old building.

The building has been used sparely for some years, mainly to store old desks and other school equipment. A few years ago, a group of parents and artists raised money to renovate one portion of the building and turned it into an after-school art space called the “artgarage.�

Former Region One Assistant Superintendent Thomas Gaisford  presented a proposal to the Region One Board of Education in 2006, arguing for the utilization of the building as a math and science center.  

The facility will allow members of the school and the community to become more involved in activities that require large amounts of space, such as Robotics demonstrations.

And it will provide a laboratory setting where experiments don’t have to be disassembled every day, as they would in a traditional classroom setting.

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