1900 South Cedar Street
Walter H. French Junior High School, Walter French Office Mall & Incubator, Walter French Center, Walter French Research Center, Walter French Academy of Business and Technology
Professor Walter H. French was born in New York around 1861. He would make a name for himself as a professor at Michigan Agricultural College. His goal was to “make better farmers and better farming.”
French brought agricultural curriculum into over a dozen Michigan high schools, including those in Lansing. This prepared some students to become farmers after graduation and played well into one of his societal concepts.
He believed every vacant lot or empty space in a city or village should be utilized to plant crops. Schools would run them, so kids knew how to cultivate gardens in their yards once they were old enough to purchase a home.
According to the Lansing State Journal, curriculums like these made him “one of the most popular faculty members at East Lansing.” At some point, French would serve on the school board. He would later be offered a position to teach at the New Mexico Agricultural College with higher pay, but he chose to stay in the Lansing area.
On the morning of January 1, 1924, Walter French passed away. The night before, he gave a speech at Masonic Lodge No. 33, which would later bare his name, where he was a member and former master. Shortly after his speech, he fell to the floor and went unconscious. He died the following day from a cerebral hemorrhage despite the multiple doctors in attendance. The news made the front page of the Lansing State Journal, and a funeral would be held at Central Methodist Temple House.
For a few years prior, Lansing was planning to build a ‘West Junior High School.’ The district purchased a plot of land at Cedar and Mt. Hope and continued preparing to construct the school.
At a Lansing Rotary Club meeting in February, a short time after French’s death, Clarence E. Holmes suggested that the school be named after their late member and friend, Walter French. Shortly after, the Merchants Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce and Kiwanis Club unanimously endorsed the plan and submitted it to the school board, who agreed.
The architect for the school was J. N. Churchill, and the general contractor was the Reniger Construction Company, which also built the Masonic Temple and St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing. The gymnasium and cafeteria weren’t complete when the school year started, but classes went on as scheduled. The first principal was J. W. Slaughter, and Walter H. French Junior High School opened for the 1925 school year.
A new wing was completed in 1957; Granger Brothers were the general contractors. It was reported that the addition would cost a ‘half million,’ but the original bid from the Grangers was $372,200. Other work was likely to be completed, so a half-mill might not be out of the question.
In 1976 a new gym and other improvements were completed.
In January of 1981, a proposal was floated by Lansing School Board member Vernon Ebersole to close French Junior High. This was an extremely unpopular idea, and parents started circulating petitions to recall seven school board members through an organization called Citizens Lobbying Against School-Board Short-Sightedness, or CLASS.
Parents were worried that if the junior high was closed and Lansing was converted to a middle school system, “sixth graders would be prematurely exposed to high schoolers — who may smoke marijuana and cigarettes and drink alcohol.” Other community members noted that nearly $2 million had been pumped into the school in the past decade, which fell into the short-sightedness category of CLASS.
Students at Walter French marched and chanted in the bitter cold in front of the central admin offices in Lansing in February 1981, hoping to make their voices heard.
On February 5, 1981, the Lansing School Board voted to phase out Harry Hill High School to turn it into a vocational center, shutter eight elementary schools, and shut down Walter H. French Junior High School. The vote to close French won 5-to-4. Parents, again, called to joust members of the board.
The Lansing State Journal asked staff and students what they thought about the closure, which was unanimously negative. Kelly Kruse, an eighth grader, said, “we don’t like it. We don’t want to go to Pattengill. I think Pattengill is a stupid school and I like French a lot better. The teachers are nice, the kids are nice. We’re No. 1.”
Assistant principal David Zuhlke said, “a lot of people in the community have depended on and been comfortable with Walter French for a long time. It’s always hard to close a neighborhood school.”
An idea quickly floated after the school’s closure was to turn it into a one-stop shop for social services in Lansing. It was large enough for everything to live under one roof but plans never materialized. In 1983, George and Louis Eyde purchased the school for just shy of a million dollars.
They planned to lease the structure to healthcare companies, but they rented to just about anyone in the end. There were advertisements for the building as the Walter French Office Mall & Incubator, Walter French Center, and Walter French Research Center. There were healthcare companies, as promised, but churches, gymnastics programs, a junior college, and other local organizations called it home. Fundraisers and other community events continued to be held at French, including the use of the auditorium.
In 1996, Walter French Academy of Business and Technology opened and took over the school. The Eyde brothers still owned it, and the school initially served grades 7-12. They would eventually take elementary students, and some felt they were attempting to become a basketball powerhouse in Lansing.
Work was still ongoing when school was supposed to start, so students’ first day was pushed back a week. Central Michigan University handled the charter.
In its later years, the school was run by the Leona Group. According to some parents, the company ran the school into the ground. CMU pulled the plug, and the charter to operate expired on Wednesday, June 30, 2004. Lansing schools hired some teachers, and some parents had their students follow their teachers.
In 2005, the roof of the Capital Area Michigan Works office next door collapsed. The office had nearly 100 workers, none of whom were injured by the accident. Although the entire staff didn’t join, essential operations were run out of Walter French Junior High briefly until the building was refurbished.
A few job fairs and other community events were held at French after that, but it sat idle for the most part. The idea to turn French into housing wasn’t new, but it began gaining stream in the 2010s. In 2014, the structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
This designation would come in handy two years later when a fire broke out. Thankfully, the Lansing Fire Department was able to contain the damage to just the gymnasium and pool areas. The cause was unknown.
Another fire would damage the structure in 2018, but crews were able to extinguish it in less than an hour. A homeless person started a small fire to keep warm, and it accidentally got out of hand.
Earlier in 2018, the families of Louis and George Eyde, who still owned the structure, donated it to the Capital Area Housing Partnership. They hoped to see the school building preserved for generations and felt it wasn’t in the building’s best interest for them to be at the helm. The plan was to renovate it into a mixed-use residential development.
In September of 2022, $5 million was awarded to the Capital Area Housing Partnership from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Plans included "a mixed-use, mixed-income project with 76 affordable apartments and two floors of commercial space that will include a childcare center and a community resource center."
Construction is anticipated to start early in 2023, last 18 months, and move-in could be as early as the Fall of 2024. Rhode Construction will be the general contractor.
Although no work was visible in mid-January 2023, the structure was secure. Hopefully, by winter’s end, progress will be made.
