Libbey heads for wrecking ball as no one bids to save it

The former Libbey High School.

Libbey High School is one step closer to the wrecking ball after no one bid to buy the building during a Wednesday morning auction.

The auction was the closed school’s last chance to avoid demolition which is scheduled to start in December. Asbestos abatement will start Thursday.

There was a minimum $395,000 bid for the more than 300,000-square-foot complex and surrounding property on Western Avenue but the only man who signed the sheet for bidders was only interested in the school’s bleachers. He paid $25,000 for those.

Libbey lovers say the school must be saved because it is a symbol of Toledo’s heyday. The original Collegiate Gothic portion of the building - named for Libbey Glass founder and philanthropist Edward Drummond Libbey - opened in 1923.

The Ohio Historic Site Preservation Advisory Board has nominated the building for the National Register of Historic Places, but Toledo Public Schools is under no obligation to keep the building as that process moves forward.