If something does happen to the defunct McBrien Elementary School building, East Ridge resident Beth Tatum has one request.
"The only thing that I would like to make sure is that some portion remains dedicated to McBrien," said Tatum, a McBrien alumni who started at the school 1961.
Tatum conveyed her opinion before a special East Ridge City Council meeting on Tuesday night at the school. Before the meeting, East Ridge residents were allowed to walk through the mostly empty building.
City officials discussed several possibilities for the site, including using it as rental space, selling it to a college for a satellite campus or using it as a "business incubator" like the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Business Development Center. But, they emphasized, there are no official plans for the building yet.
"I think we're several months from actually doing anything with the building," interim City Manager Eddie Phillips said.
In fact, Mayor Mike Steele said, East Ridge has no say in what happens with the building until its current owner, the Hamilton County Department of Education, formally gives it to the city. That is expected to happen at Thursday's Board of Education meeting.
"The building is not officially ours yet," he said. "[When it is], we can really dig in [and] get a better understanding of what all is in this building."
City officials are encouraging citizens to provide feedback on what they would like to see done with the school.
The 60,000-square-foot building, which initially opened as a junior high school in 1954, was appraised at $4.5 million, officials said.
The school ceased to be used after the end of last school year when it and the former East Ridge Elementary were combined into the new East Ridge Elementary.
Throughout the building there are indications of its last days of used, like a phrase written in the cafeteria that reads: "All balances must be paid by 5-21-10 to avoid your child's report card from being held."
It still has running water and electricity that is paid for by Hamilton County, Steele said. This is because the facility has been used a few times since it ceased to be a school, he said.
Once the building is in the possession of East Ridge, officials said they will decide on what to do with the few remaining items in the building.