Many school buildings that used to house children now just primarily house debris thanks to a precipitous drop in public school enrollment over several decades. One independent website puts the figure at over 1,000 abandoned schools in states stretching from West Virginia to Indiana.
Some advocate selling the empty buildings to charter schools, while others see the buildings as potential spaces for artists and inventive start-ups. According to NPR, "A few deals are in the works to renovate old schools into apartments, offices and artist spaces." In Japan, so-called "haiko camps" allow adults to camp overnight in refurbished former schools to both satisfy nostalgia and keep the buildings from becoming the eyesores and crime scenes they've become in the United States.
2 Comments
I visited the Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon. Coolest reuse of a building I've ever seen. I agree with the suggestion here.
http://www.mcmenamins.com/KennedySchool
In Chicago we have lots of closed schools and the problems redeveloping them are as follows;
1 asbestos
2 ADA accessibility
3 Mold
4 Out dated or broken hvac
5 fire hazard
6 not near transit
7 not near decent or even vaguely functional public schools
8 in a challenged neighborhood, crime, poverty, lack of jobs or job access
9 often sold to the mayors private school campaign contributors to open more private schools
10 someone at the school board promised the public because of reason #9 not to sell buildings to private charter schools, and now they the public school has to pay the private for profit charter schools to build a new building when one of the 54 shuttered schools is next door to the private charter.
In DC recently there was controversy in shutting down a school so it can be sold to developers for expensive loft apartments, I don't know all the facts but if a school sells an asset for much more than it would cost to bring it up to code and the district as a whole has capacity and the nearby neighbor hood schools have capacity then go for it sell it but only if you are getting the best price and that money can pay down pension debt or take care of a huge chunk of deferred maintenance.
"Public education is collapsing and may be over with in many states and cities in our lifetime" Quote from a friend who was a principal who quit and is now getting her law degree.
Over and OUT
Peter N
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