School's Out, Housing Is In

摘要

Innovative financing and adaptive reuse have come together to create affordable housing for seniors and an on-site health clinic in an old school in tiny Clendenin, West Virginia (pop. 1,227). The project brings about 55 jobs to the community, which is located near Charleston. Unemployment in the area's mostly resource-based economy (coal, gas, timber, and petrochemical) is at 7.5 percent, below the national average of 8.8 percent.AU Associates, an affordable housing developer from Lexington, Kentucky, recendy completed the $5 million project, Riverview at Clendenin School, which transformed a long-empty middle school building into 18 apartments for low-income seniors and the Cabin Creek Health Care Clinic. It opened in October.