SKOWHEGAN — It was always known as the old school on the hill overlooking U.S. Route 2 and the South Channel of the Kennebec River where the river crashes past Weston Dam into the Kennebec Gorge.

Built around 1929, the old brick building was once the local high school. When the “new” high school was built in 1972, it became the Skowhegan Junior High School.

The new middle school was built in 2003 and the old school on the hill stood empty until Joe and Chris Kruse, whose family ran a resort hotel in Florida, bought the building in 2006 to convert it into a Best Western hotel. The timing was right — Skowhegan’s Run of River whitewater park was planned for the gorge, the land was available and the view was dramatic.

Workers repaired the leaky school roof during the summer of 2006, and work through the winter got the hotel ready for occupancy sometime in 2007.

Plans called for nice rooms, an indoor pool and convention and meeting space.

“It’s right near the river,” Stephan “Joe” Kruse told selectmen in April 2006. “We will be creating an entrance from Route 2. Once you get people in the front door, if you do a good job, they’re going to come back.”

Then, on Feb. 17, 2008, the roof of the old school collapsed under the weight of heavy snow, making what was left of the standing brick walls a safety hazard.

The building was demolished in March of that year and the dreams of a fine hotel with banquet and conference facilities were gone.

The Kruses are back and so is the old school, if only in name.

Olde School Residences, a five-building, 20-unit upscale housing development is underway on what was once the football and softball field behind the old school on Willow Street.

“When it’s completed, they’re going to have five, four-unit apartment houses,” said Randall Gray, Skowhegan’s code enforcement officer. “Each one is two bedrooms with two baths. These are upscale, extremely energy efficient, beautiful, beautiful buildings.”

Gray said he went to the old school when it was still a high school and was a member of the first graduating class of the new high school about a mile away in 1972.

“They presented to me — the town — a comprehensive set of building plans, which I reviewed and approved and issued a permit for,” Gray said.

Permits were issued in July and August and construction began soon after.

At the Skowhegan Planning Board meeting in May, Fred Marshall from Plymouth Engineering said the buildings will be built in a crescent around the old ballfields. Marshall said the apartments would be rented at “market rate” and are not subsidized or categorized elderly housing, for now anyway.

Contacted by phone driving in a snowstorm to Bangor on Sunday, Chris Kruse said the family still is keeping the idea of elderly housing a possibility for the future. He said the site of the former school itself — where piles of bricks still are stacked behind chain link fences — still could be used for a hotel, but there are no plans currently in place for that.

Kruse said market rate housing would be $800-$1,000 per month, which would include everything except electricity — heat, garbage collection and snow plowing. Construction will include insulated concrete form blocks, radiant heating in the slabs, propane heat in the apartments and energy efficient appliances.

“We haven’t decided if it’s going to be over-55 housing. We’ve had a lot of interest in that. We just haven’t made that decision as of yet,” he said Sunday.

“The earliest occupancy will be late spring, early summer,” Kruse, of Skowhegan, said. “We have a lot of work to do outside, and obviously with the weather, it’ll be spring time before we finish up the outside.”

Kruse said the original plan called for 40 apartments in five, two-story buildings. He said plans changed because they wanted to have a lower impact on the area, which is largely residential.

Kruse said the collapse of the old school in 2008 was a setback, but it wasn’t going to stop him and his brother.

“It was a big disappointment, but you have to move on,” he said. “We think this is something the town is in need of, and we’re just trying to find something that is going to fit into the area. It’s been great. The neighbors have been great. The feedback we’ve been getting has been all very positive, so we’re excited moving forward with it.”

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

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Twitter: @Doug_Harlow