John Shearer: Touring Old Brainerd Junior High That Is Being Converted Into Community Center

For many people, the classic-looking old Brainerd Junior High/21^st Century Academy building that was a school for nearly 80 years before closing brings nostalgic memories of the past.

But Jay Mace looks at it and sees an opportunity for the future.

With a head full of dreams like some of the young teenagers who once attended there, but with an altruistic slant, he bought the building four years ago and has been slowly converting it into an all-purpose non-profit facility called Midtown Community Center.

The second private owner of the structure since the Hamilton County School Board disposed of the property, he has almost as many goals for it as there are rooms in the expansive former school plant that has 75,000 square feet of space on eight acres.

He hopes to see its various rooms and facilities offer such uses as before- and after-school activities that include providing meals, meetings for home-schooled coop groups, sports leagues, gatherings for work-related meetings as well as parties and special events, vocational training for youths, health checkups and health programs, and programs for the elderly, including home inspections.

“Whatever the community needs, we want to be here and be open,” he said, adding that he hopes to operate it in part through fund-raising and space rentals. “We just want to serve as a place to connect and foster relationships.”

Mr. Mace, who also operates Save America Homes Inc., which tries to help homeowners come up with more positive solutions than having to foreclose on their homes during personal or financial crises, has been renovating some of the space over the years along with a small crew.

As a result, he has a good part of the lower level renovated and has also been moving along with securing various other requirements to operate the facility as a non-profit center and hopes to more formally open with daytime hours beginning April 22.

He welcomes anyone interested – from sentimental graduates of either Brainerd Junior High/2st Century Academy to those interested in meeting or event space or the programs – to drop by the facility off North Tuxedo Avenue or contact him at jay@midtownamerica.com. He said he can also be reached at (423) 432-3030.

As Mr. Mace was over at the center on Wednesday, he offered a detailed tour of the entire complex. And for someone who loves old buildings and historic architecture and who had never been inside this school but had played a football game on the adjoining field, I totally enjoyed the experience.

While some of the upper classrooms only had paint stripped off the walls so far, and the old auditorium and original gymnasium were also waiting to be restored more thoroughly, I still could easily visualize the 1940s or 1960s when this was a bustling suburban school.

It was a complementary contrast to Mr. Mace’s plans and hopes to see some of the spaces vibrantly used beyond 2023.

The school had been originally designed by noted Chattanooga architect R.H. Hunt and built in 1930. A cafeteria with subway-tiled kitchen walls and even an interesting-looking freezer room door and some other space was added in 1956 with plans drawn by the architectural firm of Smith and Ashby. It had been built to replace a cafeteria and kitchen uniquely located on the third floor of the school. Another addition, possibly the stand-alone gymnasium just down the hill from the Jones Observatory, was added in 1959.

The more-modern gym, which still features wooden pullout stands, was built behind the school in 1991. It has been used for sports programs since Mr. Mace bought the structure.

The school had been converted into the magnet 21^st Century Academy in 1994 before being closed in 2009.

Besides old lockers lining halls, old chalkboards apparently covered with whiteboard, and the oak flooring on some of the classrooms, perhaps the most interesting features to me were the old gym and old auditorium. They had both been built on each end of the school in part so that members of the community could enter them separately at night after normal school hours.

The old gym, which sits at an unusual slight slant to the main building and is on the right as one walks up to the front of the school, is definitely a throwback. It features a grandstand almost encased in framing on one side, and giant covered windows on the other. I had seen stands like that in the now-razed old Red Bank High/Middle School building off Dayton Boulevard, and in the old former Notre Dame High gym in a closed building by Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church downtown. The Brainerd gym still has the old Brainerd Junior High/Middle School B in the center of the court.

The old auditorium still has a few old wooden seats that Mr. Mace did not give away to former alumni, and the expansive backstage area still has an interesting old metal control box for the stage lights. As is perhaps indicative of some of Mr. Hunt’s buildings, the whole auditorium almost looks like it could have easily been a church nave/sanctuary, or vice versa. A stage instead of an altar and pulpit in the front is the main difference.

Beside the back of the stage are an old band/choir practice area with terraced platforms and a remodeled ballet room, which are also evidently part of the 1956 addition.

“The whole place has tons of opportunities,” Mr. Mace said after the tour.

For Mr. Mace, who is using purple as the official community center color because he is admittedly a purple freak, the opportunity is not just having a former school facility that he hopes one day to see completely restored. He said he also hopes to see it completely used, and as a place that shows love and compassion.

He admits his community center dream is a chance to give back. He said he spent part of his growing-up years in the Knoxville housing projects of Christenberry Heights and Montgomery Village before graduating from Carter High there and later living in Florida. While living in the projects in Knoxville, he once even experienced the trauma of seeing someone who had taken his own life.

He said life was not easy, but he was helped by community programs, and that is what he hopes to do with Midtown Community Center.

“I went to the Boys Club every day,” he recalled. “That after-school program provided me an opportunity to do sports – basketball, boxing, football, and swimming.

“The youth nowadays, they just need an opportunity to go out and play and be with people that care about them and show them there are ways of being nice and kind to one another. And let them know education is important and let them know they need to take advantage of people that want to help them and learn as much as they can.”

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To see a previous historical story written on the old Brainerd Junior High/21st Century Academy, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/6/15/392005/John-Shearer-Examining-The-Old.aspx

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jcshearer2@comcast.net