Detroit Public Schools officials have launched a hard sell on nearly 100 empty buildings in the district.
As the Detroit News reports, they range from a two-story English Tudor-style building with a swimming pool, fireplace and two glass conservatories to a sprawling, graffiti-laden structure ravaged by thieves.
Virtually all of the 84 properties for sale by DPS were once neighborhood landmarks that were filled with eager children.
Today they sit vacant, victims of plummeting enrollment due to Detroit's population slide and the rise of charter schools. More than 100,000 children have left the hallways of DPS schools in the last decade.
To address the problem, school and city officials announced Wednesday they are collaborating on a citywide effort to reinvent vacant school buildings and sites into innovative redevelopment projects.
At the same time, the Detroit Planning Commission has recommended an ordinance that would add 19 additional uses for buildings originally constructed as schools in residential zones.
The ordinance is before the city's law department and is expected to be considered by Detroit City Council in coming weeks.
DPS Emergency Manager Roy Roberts said it costs the district from $300,000 to $900,000 to tear down a school. Roberts said he would rather see the buildings and sites repurposed and money from the sale going toward the students in the district, which is under state control and working to shed a multi-year deficit.
