Restoration of old Boynton school sets off debate

Preserve, renovate or demolish: It's a recurring dilemma in South Florida, where development and history often collide.

While some view historic buildings as treasures, other see them as obstacles to something grander. Boynton Beach is just the latest community to enter the fray after it opted to spare a 1927 high school and put it to new commercial use.

Now the architect's bold design, calling for two-story glass additions, is giving city officials pause.

"Often this type of renovation comes into controversy," said Juan Contin, the Lake Worth architect chosen to rehabilitate the building.

The line between adaptive reuse, which demands modernizing renovations, and historic preservation is a blurry one.

In Hollywood, for example, developers want to partially demolish the 1920s-era Great Southern Hotel and build a 19-story condo tower. Two sides of the building's facade would remain, but 229 apartments would shoot up from behind it.

Commissioners approved the project over outcry from the preservation community.

"It's not historic preservation. It's not adaptive reuse. It's gone," said advocate Sara Case.

In Fort Lauderdale , preservationists are fighting plans to build a parking garage around aCoca-Cola bottling plant built in 1938. That building is one of 11 endangered sites identified by the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

"You would not even recognize or see or distinguish the Coca-Cola plant from what was being proposed to build around it," said activist Steven Glassman.

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Restoration of old Boynton school sets off debate