Housing developers are beginning to see opportunity in the shuttered schools cast off by the dozens in cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit and Chicago. These buildings, closed because of population decline and charter school competition, are gaining new life as apartments, senior housing and lofts.
"Some of these schools are so beautiful and architecturally important, and there is no other use for them, other than housing," says Gilbert Winn, managing principal of WinnDevelopment, which is converting two school properties in Massachusetts and New York.
If left empty, these structures only escalate blight and attract more crime, says Harris Steinberg, executive director of PennPraxis, an arm of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, which recently studied possible uses for Philadelphia's burgeoning number of abandoned schools.
If developers can find the money to convert them to housing, they can become homes with character, boasting large windows, wide hallways, high ceilings, grand staircases and historic stone facades.
At the 20-unit Lindenwood Lofts in St. Louis, original stained-glass windows and slate chalkboards from the 1929 Lindenwood Elementary School make for unique, high-ceilinged, one- and two-bedroom condominiums and apartments. "The building is charming. It has wonderful character," says Lynne Steinert, an agent with Boutique Realty who has marketed the units.
The problem
Hundreds of these beautiful old buildings are sitting vacant across the country, as districts close schools to plug budget shortfalls. The Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 public schools this year, the largest wave of school closures in history. Philadelphia closed 24 in an effort to meet a $50 million budget shortfall. More than a third of Philadelphians live within half a mile of a closed school, according to the Steinberg's Philadelphia School Reuse Studio, which recently released a report titled "New Life for Old Schools."
Many districts are on their second and third round of closures, says Emily Dowdall, senior associate with the Pew Charitable Trusts, which released a report earlier this year on the struggle to convert shuttered schools into housing in 12 markets around the country. In these 12 markets, from Detroit to Atlanta, districts have sold, leased or reused a total of 267 properties since 2005, and an additional 301 sites are still on the market.
These school sales are not big money generators, Dowdall says. The buildings Pew studied fetched between $200,000 and $1 million, she says, less than most districts had expected. But it is critical that they are sold. The cost of maintaining a closed school is high – as much as $5,000 a month – according to School District of Philadelphia documents obtained by the PennPraxis students for their report.
In Detroit alone, more than 80 abandoned school properties are listed for sale, including some of the 36 that were closed this summer. Tammy Deane, real-estate manager for Detroit Public Schools, says her office is in negotiations with a couple of housing developers for these campuses and has sold buildings for a skilled nursing facility, rehabilitation center, grocery store, church and even an arboretum. The district has stopped selling to rival charter schools.
"In six years, we've made over $16 million in revenue from these sales and leases," she says. Interest is growing, she says, from investors and developers as far away as California.
And there are plenty of campuses to consider, both public and parochial schools, which are shutting their doors in greater number, Dowdall says.
The projects
One reason apartments and condominiums are a great fit for these abandoned schools: location. Most are in less-crowded residential neighborhoods, which makes them less appealing to many office or retail users. They're also structurally suited to multifamily housing, with their divided classrooms and common areas, including lobbies, auditoriums and principals' offices.
At Winn's Livingston School project in Albany, N.Y., which will break ground in December, the former middle-school auditorium, built in 1932, will become a fitness center for residents of the 103-unit affordable senior apartments. The principal's office will morph into a leasing office. The slate classroom chalkboards have been cut up and will be used as signs across the property.
Senior housing has become a prime use of many old school buildings, Dowdall says, because of the aging population in many areas where schools are closed. Low-income senior rental housing is also eligible for government tax credits, which help make the project pencil, Winn says, as do historic preservation credits and other state assistance. Winn received $4.3 million from the state of New York for its conversion.
"One can't repurpose [these schools] without public support," Winn says. But, he adds, this support is going to stabilize a community and provide a much-needed form of housing.
To be sure, few newly built apartments today could boast such beautiful architecture, including elaborate windows and an ornate copper cupola adorning the roof.
Historic-preservation guidelines hamper what Winn can do with the Livingston property. He can't, for instance, tamper with the wide hallways or make the high-ceilinged gymnasium into two levels of apartments. It will be walled off until it can be used, perhaps by a theater group or adult day care provider. Structures built in more recent decades, such as the 1980s cafeteria, can be razed to make parking.
And while these buildings are often inexpensive to buy, developers face a whole slew of expensive rehabilitation challenges: outdated heating and cooling systems, lead paint, stripped plumbing and a lack of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. "Some of these buildings have been sitting empty for decades," Dowdall says.
"Developers have a heavy lift ahead of them" when they take one of these projects on, Winn says. But they are economically appealing, especially after government incentives, credits and other assistance.
Winn has another school reuse project under way in Worcester, Mass., where an old vocational school is being transformed into the 84-unit Voke Lofts project, a transit-oriented complex that is split evenly between affordable and market-rate apartments with shared amenities such as a community room with kitchen, fitness center, computer learning center and bike storage.
The future of school recycling
Not every school building can be saved. Some sit in areas that are too empty to be an attractive lure for housing, and some are simply too deteriorated, contaminated or oddly configured to salvage, including many of the properties built after World War II, Steinberg says.
In these areas, planners argue it would be better for cities to provide money for developers to demolish the properties and rebuild, as was done in Philadelphia with the John Wanamaker Middle School. The school was torn down to make way for a 14-story, $100 million apartment tower for nearby Temple University students.
The conversions aren't always an immediate success just because they have great charm and character. Some residents who bought into St. Louis' Lindenwood Lofts, converted during the last real-estate bust, have struggled to resell their units because of the building's location in a mostly single-family area with few walkable amenities and few covered parking spaces.
The property's developer, Rothschild Development, has opted to lease out the remaining units, rather than sell, until property values improve. "They will lease it until they make their money back," Steinert says.
But for most cities, the alternative to these conversions is simply unthinkable. And models already are in place in Philadelphia that show the multiple lives one institutional building can have. "Some of the school buildings have been a factory, a synagogue or an office building that were converted to public schools," Dowdall says. "Now they are going condo."
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