Adaptive Reuse: School Buildings

Adaptive Reuse is a relatively popular category for the Rural Resurrection website. If done right, an adaptive reuse project can be a profitable venture for those involved. But if done right, it can also become a visual centerpiece for your community, drawing others in. This includes school buildings, many of which have great architectural character, but need a new use to survive.

Rising costs and falling enrollment have caused a number of schools to close over the past few decades. With the consolidation of school districts, many once-active centers of learning are now sitting vacant. Many of these are beautiful brick structures that rise higher than most of the other buildings in town. But with the closure, they sit vacant, rotting away as time creeps along.

However, a few communities have taken the hit of the school closure and found ways to reuse the school buildings. Once rotting, derelict structures are being renovated and reused. Here are a few examples of communities that have overcome and used adaptive reuse to bring life back to abandoned school buildings.

Carlton Lofts; Cloquet, Minnesota

Cloquet, a city of a little over 12,000 in Minnesota, built a brick adorned highschool in 1921. As time moved on, the building was converted into the community’s middle school when the high school moved to a new facility. But the school closed all together in 2017 as the middle school moved to a newer facility as well.

Although the school district had little use for the structure, developers were intrigued by its potential. Crofton Lofts apartments now offer 57 apartments for mixed-income residents. They’ve kept the gym and added a parking structure to the development. The school district also rents some office space in the basement. This ambitious $12 million project was funded, in part, through state and federal housing tax credits as well as historical tax credits.

For more on the Crofton Lofts, check out Former middle school is Transformed on the Pine Knot News webpage.

Carlton Lofts, by Anon a mouse Lee; Wikimedia CC-BY-SA-4.0

A former middle school in Cloquet, Minnesota was remodeled and repurposed into apartments, at a cost of $12 million. State and federal housing tax credit and historical tax credits were the source of funding for the project. The project includes 57 apartments for mixed income residents. The school district also rents some office space in the basement. The success of this project was attributed to the school district’s dedicated committee of champions, and the partnership of the school district and city. (Source: “Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings in Rural Minnesota” by Kathryn Stover, University of Minnesota Extension)

Hotel Grinnell; Grinnell, Iowa

Developers in Grinnell, Iowa, have taken a different route with a former school than others. They’ve redeveloped a former Junior High School that sat empty for 40 years into a hotel. Hotel Grinell is a 45-room boutique hotel with a ballroom that seats 300 and a 450-seat auditorium. The hotel also houses a bar and an outdoor patio as well.

The developer, Catalyst, has converted a number of the classrooms into hotel rooms with unique touches. There are blackboards in each of the rooms and some rooms include lockers repurposed into benches.

Hotel Grinnell was funded through a mixture of historic tax credits, local motel tax, tax increment financing (TIF), private equity, and a bridge loan.

Ridgeway Community Center

The village of Ridgeway, Wisconsin, is a shining example of the energy that a community needs to complete an adaptive reuse project that can make a difference to a community. Nothing was going to slow this community down in making a difference through adaptive reuse.

The Ridgeway school building served as an educational facility for all of the community’s children until the 1960’s when school consolidation forced the high school students to Dodgeville. It continued to serve the community’s younger students until the entire school was closed by the Dodgeville School District in April 2020.

Town leaders wasted no time and immediately set to work when they learned that the school would close. After surveying the residents, they purchased the property and started drafting up plans to reuse it.

The facility itself will have quite a bit to offer residents of this community. The village is moving its office into the facility and the Village Board (and other committees and commissions) will use the Conference Room. But it is also a hub for much more:

• Community Gym
• Volunteer Library and Media Center
• Senior Center
• Kitchen and Multipurpose Room
• Conference Room/Meeting Rooms
• Marshal’s Office
• Retail and Business Space

More on the project is available through a past post on Rural Resurrection about it: Adaptive Reuse: Ridgeway Community Center.

Ridgeway Community Center Sign; Courtesy – Village of Ridgeway

Check Back for More

These are just a few examples of closed school buildings that have been adaptively reused rather than left to rot. Check back for more examples of how former school buildings have been reused. We’ll surely revisit this subject again as there are a number of exemplary projects that could serve as an impetus for the reuse of an abandoned school in your community.

You may know of an interesting adaptive reuse project. One that may be a helpful example to other communities, don’t keep it to yourself! Let us know through our contact form.