Click here to subscribe today or Login.
City Brokers Real Estate in Edwardsville has listed the venerable Coughlin High School for sale with an asking price of $1.8 million, a move expected ever since the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board voted to consolidate its three high schools into a new building under construction in Plains Township.
The listing description makes it pretty clear it’s not a residential site: 136,282 square feet, 10 bathrooms, and a three-parcel site. That includes a small parking lot across the street from the school itself and the open field on the Union Street side of the original high school, which has been unoccupied since 2016.Combined, the three lots are about 3.2 acres in the heart of Wilkes-Barre
The district deemed the building unsafe and split students into two groups, with two grades taking classes in the newer annex that houses the gym and several classrooms, and two other grades in the former Mackin Elementary School building that was extensively renovated.
The original high school was then gutted with asbestos removed in anticipation of razing the structure. The district held an auction on many of the items in the school. The original plan was to construct a new school that would house grade 9-12 from Coughlin and Meyers High Schools, stretching the full length of the vacant lot to Union Street. The district also planned to buy and renovate the neighboring Times Leader building and parking lot, which the newspaper vacated to consolidate operations in the nearby printing press building on Market Street.
That plan for a school on the existing site died when the Wilkes-Barre Zoning Hearing Board denied a needed zoning variance, despite the fact that the site has been home to a school for more than 100 years. The School Board then voted to consolidate the two schools at the Plains Township location, later agreeing to move GAR Memorial grades 9-12 to the new building as well. King’s College purchased the Times Leader building but has not announce plans for its use.
Shortly after voting to build in Plains Township, the board and administrators started talking about selling the Coughlin site, expecting the central location would draw buyers. But it didn’t get listed until recently.
The asbestos abatement in the old school totaled about $2.5 million, but after the decision to leave it standing, district officials argued the work had to be done either by the district before selling it or by the new owner after buying it, and that having it already removed should increase the property value once it was put on the market.
The new school, expected to cost about $121 million and sitting on about 73 acres of a former mining site, is set to open in the fall of 2021.
Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish