COPPERTON -- Can the historic Bingham High School building in Copperton dodge the wrecking ball?

Several local residents and state historians, along with the building's owner, Kennecott Copper Corp., hope some entity or agency soon chooses to make a home in the 67-year-old structure.If not, the building will likely be leveled sometime next year.

"We're optimistic now," said Copperton resident and old Bingham High graduate Afton Anderson. "Without that building, we'd have a hole in this community."

Anderson called a feasibility study, now under way, to examine rehabilitation and reuse possibilities a vital step in finding new tenants for the vacant building.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently awarded the Utah Heritage Foundation a $3,000 grant to help pay for the feasibility study. The foundation and Kennecott will pick up the remaining costs of the study.

"The historic Bingham High School and, in fact, the town of Copperton are significant and irreplaceable parts of Utah's and our nation's history," said National Trust president Richard Moe. "Across the country, scores of historic schools have been adapted for new uses, including elder housing, small-business incubators and office space."

The feasibility study will assess the structural condition of the building, outline a rehabilitation plan, identify potential new uses and estimate rehabilitation costs.

The school was built in 1931, and thousands of south valley high school students studied there until the Jordan School District built the new Bingham High in South Jordan. The old facility was then converted into a middle school for several years before being vacated in 1996.

At the time of construction, Kennecott donated the land and helped provide building costs with the legal understanding that the property and school house revert back to the copper company if vacated by the school district.

Since inheriting the site, Kennecott has tried unsuccessfully to offer the property to several government, public and educational groups for use as a community center, school, public safety facility or armory, said Kennecott spokesman Louis Cononelos.

"Our stipulation has been that (the property) would be for public use," Cononelos said.

But public agencies haven't shown much interest in setting up shop at old Bingham High, Cononelos said, perhaps because of the cost of refurbishing to bring the building to code. The isolated location of the school also is a factor.

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Kennecott is not presently interested in selling the property or building to a private company.

Still, Anderson hopes the feasibility study, coupled with an upcoming advertising effort to find tenants, will glean new occupants and save the old school.

The building, she said, would be attractive to agencies not concerned with the locale, or maybe to disabled worker groups who could use the school's old shop space.

The clock is ticking. Kennecott still plans to raze the building if an appropriate use is not found soon, Cononelos said.

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