SCRANTON -- A long closed school in Scranton will soon be used for education again, from preschool to graduate school.
A room that used to be a gym and cafeteria for sixth through eighth graders in the Scranton School District, by this time next year, will be used by preschoolers. The floors above it will house University of Scranton students.
East Scranton Junior High School is one of a handful of old school buildings left vacant. This one has been closed since 2001.
A private developer, Green Space Properties, bought the building in 2008. Greenspace will lease the building to the University of Scranton.
"The university, typically when they own buildings, they go off the tax rolls. This is a great partnership where they will be a tenant and we will continue to pay taxes while they are part of the facility. Normally, that isn’t the way the university operates," said Tom Romanowski, Greenspace Properties.
So, the building will stay on the tax rolls and serve two purposes.
Hildebrant Learning Centers, an early childhood care center, will occupy the first floor. The second and third floors will be apartments for University of Scranton graduate students.
Scranton councilman Bob McGoff was a teacher there.
"It was one of my first years teaching, and it was the first year this opened as a junior high school," McGoff recalled.
McGoff and other people from the Hill section neighborhood got a look at what time has done to the classrooms at East Scranton Junior High School. Greenspace will start renovations in a few weeks.
Greenspace says there are also plans to make the outside the building look a lot better. There are plans for two new playgrounds, one on the side, another in the back of the building. It’s all set to be done by the summer of 2015.
Plans are to have the apartments and the learning center ready for the beginning of the 2015 school year. This building has been a school since the turn of the century.
"It’s nice to see the building go back to an educational use, especially after it's been vacant for so long," McGoff said.