FALL RIVER – The historic N.B. Borden School, where Lizzie Borden was educated as a child, is slated for demolition next month.
A six-month demolition delay, imposed by the city on historic properties, will expire Oct. 18, allowing the owner to tear down the brick structure that dates to 1868.
Owner Kevin Santos, who also owns the nearby T.A. Restaurant, said he is making plans to tear down the building but hasn’t yet worked out a definite date.
He said demolishing the school wasn’t his plan when he purchased the property, 45 Morgan St., in 2012, but he can’t afford to renovate the building into apartments or keep it up any longer.
“I worked very hard to do something with it,” Santos said. “It’s a financial decision. It’s not feasible. My intention was never to ruin any city history.”
The Preservation Society of Fall River had hoped to see the building saved because of its value as an historic structure, and especially its history as Lizzie Borden’s school house.
Lizzie Borden attended third to eighth grades at the then-new N.B. Borden School, formerly known as the Morgan School.
“It’s too bad,” said Preservation Society President Jim Soule. “When you have a city selling historic buildings, there should be a higher expectation.”
Lizzie Borden is internationally known as a possible murderer in the 1892 brutal hatchet slayings of her father and step-mother in what has become one of the most well-known unsolved homicide cases in history.
Though she was found not guilty, questions of Lizzie Borden’s innocence are still hotly debated today.
The Borden story – in both fact and fiction – has been played out in numerous books, films, staged plays and television productions.
Soule said the city might have avoided the “landmark” structure being torn down by outlining the building’s use in the purchase and sale agreement.
“It’s not just an old building,” Soule said. “It’s our heritage and a piece of our neighborhood. The city needs to be more forward thinking."
Santos purchased the school for $5,000 after making a bid for the property that was unanimously approved by the City Council.
Santos said he has spent some $300,000 over the last seven years, including the creation of parking, paying insurance and taxes, contractor and architect fees, and repairs.
Santos said it would cost him roughly $3.5 million to create the 12 apartments he had planned for the school building, and that it’s not big enough for more. He said rents could never cover the cost.
Santos said he wants to better the neighborhood by removing a “safety concern,” and provide needed parking. He said he’ll create 110 parking spaces, some of which he will rent to nearby businesses.
Soule said a parking lot is “not a good reuse of an historic building. I also don’t see a parking lot being an economic boon to the South End.”
Santos said he’s “always investing in the area,” including when his Azorean Cultural Society group provides an annual free Thanksgiving dinner to those in need. It’s the largest free Thanksgiving dinner in the city, feeding more than 500 people each year.
Soule said the Preservation Society had hoped to speak to Santos about his decision to demolish during the last several months. He said Santos was invited to meetings, but did not attend.
“We really didn’t get anywhere,” Soule said. “The owner had made up his mind about what he was going to do.”
Santos said he sent a letter to the society, and that there was “really nothing left to say.”
Santos said he was starting to feel like the Preservation Society was slandering him with comments and social media posts.
“I think I’ve been treated a little unfairly,” Santos said.
Soule told The Herald News in May that Santos had the “right” to demolish the building and that the society wants to promote awareness in saving other historic properties.
Email Deborah Allard at dallard@heraldnews.com.