WYANDOTTE, Mich. – Many communities struggle to redevelop former school buildings.
The former McKinley Elementary School in Wyandotte closed more than 15 years ago and has been vacant ever since.
Now, a former student of the school is bringing life back to the building.
“We bought it for a dollar, which sounds crazy, but the city was in a position of knocking it down at a cost of maybe $2 million and only being able to sell the land. It would have been a real big loss for the taxpayers,” said former student Ron Thomas.
Thomas owns Rise Above Ventures, which focuses on redeveloping blighted or underutilized properties.
Construction is underway to transform the 59,000-square-foot school building into condos and apartments, 15 of each.
Thomas took Local 4 inside to see the current conditions of the building.
“The main corridors here are nice and are going to be salvaged and used,” Thomas said. “The floors beneath, like I said, will clean up beautifully. This is kind of the stuff you can’t install anymore because it is so expensive to do.”
Thomas wants to maintain some of the school’s history.
“So one of my favorite features about the building is the artwork on the wall,” Thomas said. “This was all done by students back before the school closed. It’s a bunch of images of buildings actually here in town and what they were 20 years ago.”
Jill Villalva’s fiancé lives across the street from the former school.
Her dad attended McKinley.
“We need something to be done with it,” said Villalva. “Otherwise, it’s just deteriorating.”
The playground and field area at the back of the school will become a park for public use.
That’s very important to the community’s residents. The property will also include some single-family homes.
Thomas looks forward to the next chapter of McKinley, a story he is helping write.
“I have some personal history, and I just can’t wait for the day, which, hopefully, end of next year, I can walk through and see this brought back to life,” Thomas said.