The 83-year-old Lincoln Building may need to be replaced as the home of the Ames School District administrative offices, because of its age and its lack of handicap accessibility, discussion at the Ames School Board meeting concluded.

Concern for the building grew with the recent American with Disabilities Act which stresses greater regulations to improve accessibility for handicapped students in schools.

At that time, the Ames School District solicited the services of a law firm in Des Moines to initiate an ADA audit on all 12 of their buildings for ADA regulations.

“From this audit we developed an ADA implementation plan and part of that was the Lincoln Building. This caught the eye of the board because it is almost totally inaccessible for the handicapped with increasing repair bills every year because of its age,” said Ralph Farrar, assistant superintendent.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Richard Roseland, of Roseland Architects in Ames, met with board members to discuss a feasibility study done relative to the future of the Lincoln Building and the housing of their central office administrating services.

Five separate scenarios for reconstruction of the building to meet ADA regulations and to correct other aging related problems were proposed. The scenarios attempted to give the board more of a general approach rather than actual dollar amounts.

The consensus of board members focused on remaining in the building for another 5 years while either building a new office, which will cost around $1 million dollars, or relocating the existing services to Wilson-Beardson.

Reports from structural engineers brought in by Roseland Architects concluded that buildings like the Lincoln Building generally have a life span of 100 years, so even if they were to completely remodel at a cost of $50,000 per year, they would only get another 20 years of use from the building.

“This is one of the most difficult issues in terms of facilities dealing with administrative space, ” said Farrar. “Something needs to be done now if we want to stay here for the next five years.”

Money will be borrowed from a school house fund board members started a few years ago in order to complete the project.

No set plan of action was decided on, but the board did discuss bringing in someone with an interest in handicapped accessibility to give advice on what can be done for the present time.

The board will met again on July 10 for further discussions on what the cost of energy would be over a five year period of time to replace the boiler in the Lincoln Building or use forced air.