Old Topsail Consolidated School Adaptive Reuse as County Government Annex

About the Program

Category: Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

The Pender County Topsail Consolidated School built in 1924 during part of a national wave of school consolidation projects, originally housed students in grades 1-11. The school was later converted into one of the area’s earliest integrated schools for upper grade students, and later served as a middle school through the mid 1990’s. It was then used for local community college classes for several years before being abandoned and falling into disrepair and eventually being listed on the Historic Wilmington Foundation’s 2009 list of Most Threatened Places in the Region. In 2004, the school property was transferred to the County Government. In 2013, the Pender County Board of Commissioners with the belief that re-use is the ultimate form of recycling and a primary strategy for sustainability was adaptive re-use of the former school decided to fund a complete renovation of the abandon space for increased service productivity at the “County Annex” for county functions such as Health and Human Services, Planning & Community Development, Permitting and Inspections, Veteran’s Services, Juvenile Justice Services, and the Sheriff’s Department. This project not only revitalized a historical community landmark, it restored it as an active hub for community use with a 244-seat auditorium and stage.