La Crosse council to consider appeal of landmark designation for Lincoln School at Thursday meeting

An appeal of the proposed historic status for Lincoln Middle School comes before the La Crosse city council at its July meeting on Thursday.

School district leaders believe landmark status for Lincoln could make the 100-year-old building harder to sell.

Tim Acklin, La Crosse’s city planner, said Wednesday on La Crosse Talk PM that any proposal by a purchaser to tear down Lincoln would lead to even more study of the project.

“If a developer purchased it, and wants to demolish the building,” Acklin told WIZM’s Rick Solem, “there’s gonna be a more thorough review of that development and of the petition to remove it.”

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La Crosse Talk PM airs weekdays at 5:06 p.m. Listen on the WIZM app, online here, or on 92.3 FM / 1410 AM / 106.7 FM (north of Onalaska). Find all the podcasts here or subscribe to La Crosse Talk PM wherever you get your podcasts.

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Acklin, who’s worked for the city for 20 years and has only had one other appeal to a historic designation — which came in 2017 — added that Lincoln’s architectural style was a major reason for the approval of landmark status by a city committee in June.

“It’s actually been considered one of the best school structures in that style, in this region and in this side of the state,” said Acklin. “It’s pretty well preserved and keeps all of its distinguishing features for that style of architecture.”

Acklin noted the former Roosevelt school on the north side already had landmark status before it was converted into affordable housing.

City council members are expected to take comments during the 6 p.m. meeting Thursday at City Hall, and could go into closed session later on to discuss Lincoln.

The La Crosse School Board voted a few months ago to close Lincoln, leaving Logan and Longfellow as the two remaining public middle schools in the district.

The school district announced its appeal last week, and this is the first city council session since the Heritage Preservation Commission approved landmark status for Lincoln. The district had a 30-day period to appeal that decision.