DECORAH -- City Council members this week thought all they needed to do was find a place to store items salvaged from the historic East Side School. Instead, they learned sites are available but as much as $150,000 must be raised to buy the materials.

Gateway Environmental Services of Highland, Ill., has a $145,500 contract with the Decorah School District to "deconstruct" the building. Work is scheduled to take place over the Christmas holiday.

The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Lyle Otte, chairman of the Decorah Historic Preservation Commission, initially said his group would like the city to provide storage space to accommodate reclaimed materials from East Side should a community group buy the items for reuse locally.

Otte said there is interest in preserving the school's two towers, as well as some brick and wood. He added some objects would need to be stored indoors.

Deborah Bishop, however, later said she secured an unused quarry to hold limestone brick and the school's landmark towers and is hopeful barns might be available to store wooden items.

Bishop added the company taking the building down would be "pleased" to reach an agreement with an entity interested in keeping the materials in the area, though everything inside the former school is marketable throughout the country.

"Our cost would be much less than it will be for someone else," Bishop said.

Bishop asked whether council members would consider helping buy the materials.

"It's an exciting idea -- being able to buy all the construction materials of the 100-year-old East Side School -- given we can't keep it standing," she said.

"These are very unique and valuable materials you can't find somewhere," Bishop added.

Kevin Lee, a Decorah resident interested in historic preservation, submitted a letter on the topic as well.

The materials "simply are little bundles of energy ready to be used with minimal emissions to the environment," Lee wrote.

"Using these units of embodied energy saves our community the expense of acquiring new, lessens emissions put (into) the environment and lessens the extraction of resources used in creating new materials," he wrote.

"Other communities see the value of the deconstructed material and are hungry to use them. Why not our own?" Lee added.

Bishop hopes a subcommittee of the East Side School Development Committee, which raised money in its attempt to save the building, might form and take donations to purchase the materials.

Bishop said up to $1,000 could be considered a charitable contribution. Those pledging more than $1,000 could see a return on their investment based on the sale of the materials. So far, $4,500 has been pledged.

"Others are waiting to see more of the details," Bishop said.

Council member Karen Tjossem said discussions for the next budget start in January, but noted two problems.

"We don't know what we have to spend right now … We have to have an organization to give it to, and you're saying right now you don't have that," Tjossem said.

Bishop said the East Side School Development Committee would have to change its charter from renovating the structure as a community center to preserving the materials.

"It's saving the building in a little different manner," she said.

Councilman Steve Matter said he hoped the city would to contribute to the project.

"It's important for the historical aspect and healing of wounds to have some of these materials. I'll stick up for you at our annual budget meeting," Matter said.

Contact Sarah Strandberg at newsroom@wcfcourier.com.