Students donned dust masks and wielded hammers and crowbars as they took out wiring, drywall and plaster, getting a dilapidated, abandoned house into shape to be rebuilt.
The students from teacher Charles Hessman’s construction technology class at Franklin Community High School are getting hands-on experience because of a partnership between a local developer, who bought the abandoned property on the 400 block of West Jefferson Street from the Franklin Development Corp. That developer, Paul Ambrose, accepted a request from Hessman to let students work on it for experience.
As the Baby Boomer generation retires, jobs are opening up in several industries including construction, where there is a high demand for a skilled, young workforce, Hessman said.
“There’s a great need for skilled laborers,” Hessman said. “They are graduating at a great time. If they stay off their phones and stay drug free there are great jobs out there to be had. Baby Boomers are retiring and (employers) aren’t able to fill those jobs.”
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After the Franklin Development Corp. acquired the property during a tax sale, which occurs when the taxes owed on a property are greater that the value of the property, developer Paul Ambrose bought it for $7,800. Ambrose is funding the cost of rehabilitating the house to the point it can be sold on the real estate market, which should cost him about $90,000, he said.
“When we purchased it, it had been vacant for roughly eight years so everything (was missing); no power, no water, nothing working in the home for the past eight years,” Ambrose said. “I purchased the house and I’m using it for educational purposes, for kids to spark their interest in the construction field.”
Typically the process of getting a house market-ready takes three to four months, and students began working on it in the beginning of September. After completing the demolition work, which will just leave the skeleton of the house standing, students will remodel the house with working utilities and replace the plumbing, drywall and windows. Ambrose is working on the house alongside the students. Students won’t work on the roof because the school deemed it too risky, Hessman said.
Working on the house gives students an interesting look at all the infrastructure that goes into buildings, such as wiring and drywall, senior Gabriel Mayeaux said.
“It’s interesting how many wires are in the house,” Mayeaux said. “It’s the stuff behind the walls that you don’t see.”
Junior Kalob Stevens is getting paid to work after school on the house on certain days, and said the experience in construction can help him reach his goal of becoming an aerospace engineer.
“The class has hands-on experience,” Stevens said. “Right now we’re scooping up the insulation. It’s pretty laborious especially since we have to tear it down.”
In previous years, students in construction class have built doghouses for the humane society, built a mini barn for storage near the high school tennis courts and worked with a roofing contractor to tear off a roof, but this is the first time his class has worked on an extensive housing rehabilitation project, Hessman said.
