A slowly emptying lot of bricks, mortar, wood and memories good and bad will give way to a green space, said the owner of the former Speed Street School.

At the northeast corner of Speed and Marshall streets, the building constructed in 1894 as South Vicksburg Public School No. 200, has been the site of a piece-by-piece demolition since March. Useful portions, such as the old brick and hardwood beams and flooring have been salvaged.

The demolition began after the structure was condemned six months earlier by city building inspection officials.

After the school closed in 1940, the structure was converted to apartments. In the early 1970s, the apartments were converted to rent-assisted units with absentee owners, and maintenance slipped. By the time of the condemnation order, the structure was deemed unfit for human habitation with clogged pipes and toilets on upper floors leaking raw sewage through ceilings onto tenants below.

Early thoughts aimed at redeveloping the building were dashed because of its condition, said attorney Lee Davis Thames, who bought the building directly across Speed Street from his family’s mansion-style home in spring of 2008. That left razing it as the only option.

“We’ve put a lot of time and energy to try to beautify that area,” said Thames, whose law practice is in Jackson. “We do not have an intention of building anything on it.

Thames hopes a landscaped corner — even one devoid of the 115-year-old building’s shell that impressed modern-day builders for its structural integrity — will “be nice for the community.”

Work to clear the lot of remaining bricks and debris is expected to continue past Jan. 1 by Bogalusa, La.-based contract firm Will Branch Antique Lumber. The discovery of a pair of old rain-catching cisterns has both delayed and added some nostalgia to the process.

“With a building built in those days, it wouldn’t have been uncommon to have cisterns,” Thames said.

Before it was leveled, the 8,300-square-foot building was the last remaining public school in Vicksburg built in the 19th century. It had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com