Old Plains schoolhouse sold

PLAINS - After spending over a year empty, the old Plains School building has been purchased and is expected to reopen within another year.

The building’s new owners are Dr. Andrew Ordelheide and his clinic. The plan is to move the clinic to the old school and expand the dental practice in the new location. The doctor felt this would be a good move for allowing the clinic to serve the community to the best of its ability.

“I want to thank the community for keeping us so busy that we need the space,” Ordelheide said. “We don’t have nearly enough space, right here, to take care of everybody.”

As part of its expansion, the clinic will be taking on more staff. Ordelheide said the current plan is to have four dentists and up to six hygienists when using the full potential of the space. The clinic is expected to begin moving next spring, as soon as the snowpack begins to thaw, and open at the new location by September 2016 at the latest.

The expansion is not going to take up the entire building, but there are plans for the rest of the space. Ordelheide plans to use part of the remaining space to open a medical and dental education center to serve the Western Montana area.

He noted modern medicine and dental health had become primarily results-based, treating a problem after it has appeared rather than trying to cure or prevent it. He wants to start benchmark studies to show many health problems can be cured; eventually, the hope is to change how the people who make the health care system view things.

The center would not be restricted to doctors and nurses either. Ordelheide’s hope is for everyone to come to learn about different things in health care. He feels the culture of separating doctors from patients in health care design is part of what has led to the current health care crises.

“We need to reintegrate,” Ordelheide said. “Prevention is very simple, doctors just don’t want to do it and I want to change that.”

His vision is to create a place where doctors and the public can come together to share real scientific information and results. It would be a place where people can come to learn and improve their skills or get informed on a topic.

Thom Chisholm, superintendent of the Plains schools, was happy with the outcome of the sale. He noted it was unusual for a school district to sell a building and they wanted the space to be used to benefit the community; the sale is particularly historic for the Plains school district because it helps a local business as well as being a huge benefit for the community.

“It’s really quite remarkable,” he said. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Ordelheide said they are planning to keep the building as is, making some internal renovations but keeping the structure the same; the education center is even expected to make use of the old classrooms. It has not been decided if they will be leaving any mementos to the building’s 80-year history as the school, though.

“We’ve been asked that question a lot and I don’t know the answer to that,” Ordelheide said, adding they have already been approached by a number of organizations asking about the history of the building.

However, Chisholm noted there is a standing agreement between the Plains School District, City of Plains and the Plains Women’s Club to keep an arch from the old high school and the original K-12 school house as is.

Under the current plan, the entirety of the building’s top floor is expected to be the new clinic. Approximately half of the ground floor will be the educational center with the other half potentially being put up for lease to other businesses.

Ordelheide plans to keep the community updated as everything progresses toward the clinic moving and the education center opening.