The old gym next to The Harbor School was once an epicenter of energy and activity for students at Vashon Elementary School.

Kids would rollerskate there on the weekends, and UMO, Vashon’s home-grown physical comedy group, used it as a rehearsal site.

Now, however, it’s slated for demolition after the Vashon school board voted unanimously last Thursday to tear down a building it says is no longer safe.

A few Islanders say the building is a cherished and historical icon — one of few original educational structures on Vashon and one of the last of its kind in the state.

The small group is still holding on to the possibility that the gym could be saved, they said.

School district officials delayed deciding the gym’s fate for six months to give the building’s proponents a chance to come up with a viable plan to restore the structure, which was declared unsafe in 2005.

Their six months are up, and the supporters of the large, boxy structure are no closer to financing its repair. The school district intends to seek bids on the gym’s demolition, which will include some salvaging of its valuable wooden components, in a month.

It could cost $400,000 to repair the building, which needs work in almost every arena, according to an informal survey of the building last year.

The school district gave supporters of the gym “every realistic chance” to find a lead on preserving it, said Bob Hennessey, board chair.

“We have a lot of covered space in this community, and spending vast amounts of money to save this one doesn’t seem to be the best use of public money,” he said.

Hennessey said he’s concerned about safety; district staff have received several calls recently about kids playing on and under the structure.

“You can actually rock the building,” he said. “The east wall has a curve in it, and if you and a friend push on those beams, you can make it rock.”

Still, he said, if the building is demolished, he’d like to see some of its worn wooden flooring saved for posterity and built into a new school district structure.

The Vashon Park District, too, has a lot riding on the school district’s decision. It has already submitted a $500,000 grant request to the state to create a park at the site — and the plans don’t include a decaying gym there.

Instead, a multi-use athletic field would cover the gym’s current footprint. It could be used for lacrosse, baseball, football, soccer or other sports, said Wendy Braicks, executive director of the park department.

“It’s important for the success of our plans up there for it not to be in that location,” she said of the gym. “I felt that without a pretty major support from the community to save it, it was not going to happen.”

Park board chair David Hackett, however, said he had mixed feelings about the gym’s demolition.

“I looked at the building pretty seriously myself, and the sad truth is there really isn’t any other option,” he said. “On the site of the old gym, we’ll end up with a park that will serve the community very, very well.”

Mike Lande, who attended Vashon Elementary School and called the wooden gym “a priceless resource,” recalled the fun he had in the building decades ago.

“One of the favorite pasttimes was to turn out the lights,” he said of his rainy-day recesses. “And it would be completely dark, and then the volume level would just go through the roof.”

He and Islander Doug Skove are still scrambling to keep the termite-infested gym standing on Vashon.

Skove said he is hoping to turn in an application to King County for the gym to be designated a historic building.

He said he still needs an Islander to write a “historical narrative” on the building, highlighting its social, economic and educational context to underscore its historical importance.

“It has a lot of cultural connections on to the Island,” Skove said.

He said he was concerned to see that the district had allocated money for the gym’s destruction. Even in the face of “the fiscal problems the district has, they are making this a priority,” he noted.

Lande said he’d rather see the gym moved to another location — which is “relatively inexpensive” — than torn down, an option the park district had considered when planning its new park.

“It is heartbreaking; it’s really tough,” Lande said. “It’s not too late, but it’s not looking good. I’m not going to give up.”

He said the group of gym supporters “made a strategic error by putting too much hope in one donor.”

When that donor told him he wouldn’t be able to fund the repair project after all, Lande’s hopes were dashed.

But even if his group raised funds to rehabilitate the aging building, he admitted it’s not a guarantee that updating it to all safety codes could be carried out.

At the very least, he and others could honor the gym by documenting it and photographing it before it is torn down, he said.

That’s one way “to do historic preservations,” he said.

Hennessey said while he appreciated the old gym’s nostalgic value, the high price tag of its repair was prohibitive. The gym does not have water, and it would be a large undertaking just to install sprinklers in it.

“Just because it’s this old and made of wood doesn’t mean unlimited amounts of public money should be spent saving it,” Hennessey said. “I understand why someone would want to save a historic structure on Vashon. We have very few public buildings that have any soul. I’m just not sure this is the right one.”