AUGUSTA — The former Hodgkins Middle School may be undergoing a massive renovation, turning the 1958 school building into affordable apartments for senior citizens; but much of it, other than the old classrooms that are becoming new apartments, is starting to look like its old self again.

Several skylights, covered up over the years, have been uncovered to let sunlight stream into the wide old-school hallways.

Dropped ceilings installed throughout much of the building have been ripped out, exposing some of the old pipes, beams and other infrastructure, with the extra feet of space that was hidden above the dropped ceilings giving the hallways and rooms a much more airy, spacious feel with their original ceiling heights.

Some of the old school lockers are being kept in place, though they’ve been spiffed up.

So have what officials acknowledge are institutional-looking wall tiles prevalent in the halls, which officials said the design team is working hard to give a homey appearance.

Also, the old glass-block walls that make up much of the building’s exterior will be retained, though only about half of them will remain visible from inside, a compromise meant to blend historic preservation with efficiency and appease two governmental agencies that have some say in the project because they’re helping fund it.

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The renovation project at the Malta Street building, which school and city officials once had all but given up on, is now more than 50 percent complete, with a list of about 100 people who’ve expressed interest in living in its 47 units — 39 one-bedroom apartments and eight efficiencies. It is expected to open this summer.

“We’re creating 47 units, turning this old school into beautiful, safe housing for senior citizens,” said Amanda Bartlett, executive director of the quasi-municipal Augusta Housing Authority. “We’re on target for an August opening.”

Bartlett noted the building’s architectural features, including those glass blocks, are still largely intact and that the building hasn’t undergone major changes to its appearance.

Nor will it, because a substantial piece of the funding for the project is tied to historic preservation, so federal historic preservation guidelines must be followed.

Closing on the loan was delayed last year when the National Park Service rejected initial plans to insulate the inside of the many glass-block walls that make up some of the exterior of the building. The park service said that would have been too much of a visible change to the historic structure.

Bartlett said the goal of insulating the interior side of the glass blocks was to increase the R-value of the glass blocks and make heating the building more efficient, and MaineHousing, another entity helping fund the project, wants projects it is involved with to be energy-efficient.

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A compromise was reached in which half of the glass blocks will be insulated on the interior side, and the others will be left exposed. All the blocks will remain visible from the exterior.

The new facility will be called Hodgkins School Apartments.

Bartlett told Augusta city councilors, housing authority board members and others who toured the building last week that the need for quality, affordable housing for senior citizens in Maine is great. She said a Maine Real Estate Managers Association survey last fall indicated more than 9,000 senior citizens in Maine were waiting for housing. At the time of the survey, she said, the Hodgkins project was the only new senior housing project under construction.

Bartlett said that demand for senior housing confirms that $15 million in voter-approved bonds for senior housing need to be released by Gov. Paul LePage, who has criticized the bonds and so far refused to release them.

The $8.7 million Hodgkins project is being paid for, in part, with about $6 million in state and federal historic and low-income housing tax credits, the latter coming through MaineHousing.

Hodgkins closed as a school at the end of the 2009 school year and has been vacant since then.

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City officials had expressed concern that they might have to demolish the building, at significant expense, before Bartlett stepped forward in 2014 with the Augusta Housing Authority’s proposal to redevelop it into apartments for older residents.

The city struck a deal, leasing the building to the housing authority for 90 years for $1 a year.

Among participants in a recent tour of the building was Ward 2 City Councilor Darek Grant, who attended grades six through eight at the school, and was on the school board when it voted to close the school.

“It’s nice that it is going to serve the community, just in a different capacity,” Grant said. “I like to see something good come out of it.”

The school’s gymnasium has been split into two levels of units, four on each level. The upper four units are the only ones that require stairs to get to.

All the rest are accessible through ground-level entrances, according to developer and project partner Kevin Bunker, of Portland-based Developers Collaborative. Not all units will be accessed from the same level, though, as the building has multiple levels within it. Each level, however, has its own entrance from the outside. Each of the four levels also has its own laundry room, so residents won’t have to walk up and down stairs with their laundry.

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The building does not have an elevator.

Bartlett said five of the units are fully accessible to people with disabilities, but more of the units easily could be converted to be.

The stage area at the end of the gymnasium will be a community room, and the stage will be retained.

The former middle school, built in 1958 as part of a larger effort to provide space to educate post-World War II baby boomers, has been entered into the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service.

That historic designation was required for the project to be eligible for state and federal historic preservation tax credits that are being counted upon to fund about $3.4 million of the estimated $8.7 million cost.

Without those tax credits, the project wouldn’t happen, according to Bartlett.

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The former middle school was named after a former Augusta educator, Ella R. Hodgkins. It was the third school built in Augusta as part of a decadelong effort to update and consolidate schools to educate baby boomers, according to Bartlett and application materials filed in support of the building’s designation as historic. She said it remains the most intact, architecturally significant local example of what was a modern mid-century school building.

Its representation of that time period is part of what qualified it for the register. It also met the requirement, for nomination to the register, of being at least 50 years old.

“These buildings were meant to educate the baby boomers. Now they’re living in them,” Bartlett said.

Rent in the units, which includes heat, air conditioning and hot water, but not electricity, will range from $437 to $635 a month. Prospective tenants’ income must be within guidelines to qualify. For a single person, that’s less than $24,900, and $28,000 for a couple.

Bartlett noted the project is creating jobs, with about $5 million invested so far and as many as 52 men and women working on it, and 24 subcontractors, many of them local, on the job.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj


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