Aurora, Illinois converts shuttered school buildings into affordable housing
AURORA, Ill. (CBS) – A couple of shuttered school buildings in Aurora have found new purpose.
They'll serve as affordable housing for working people and families. CBS 2 visited the city as doors to one of those schools reopened for the first time in five years.
In Aurora, the next chapter began for a storied building. Local officials called it "a win-win development."
Todd Elementary School closed in 2019, but it reopened on Wednesday as the new Fox Valley Apartments.
The last residents there were students like Jill Shaw, who was a fifth-grade student in the 1970s. She still lives in Aurora and came to see her school's transformation.
"It's kind of exciting seeing the old come to new," Shaw said.
The lockers were still there and so were the murals on the wall.
"Almost like a time capsule," Shaw said.
But the classrooms are now affordable apartments. The Illinois Housing Development Authority allocated more than $17 million in state and federal tax credits to the project.
"I think it means people care about preserving the past," Shaw said.
There were 11 units available to working people and families, who will make the halls students once roamed their home.
"To our new and future residents of this building, I say welcome home!" said Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin.
Just a few minutes away, the second phase of the affordable housing project was underway. Lincoln Elementary School closed back in 2009, but the plan is to reopen its doors this spring with 36 new, affordable apartments.
The site at the old Todd Elementary will also be home to a VNA Health Care clinic that will serve students in Aurora.