Maine weighs how to turn closed schools into housing, with state help and local tradeoffs
Maine is considering legislation that would create a $5 million fund aimed at helping towns and cities convert vacant school buildings into housing, a proposal that reflects both the promise and the complexity of reusing older public facilities. Supporters say the state’s role would focus on technical and financial assistance—work that can be required before projects can move forward—while lawmakers have questioned whether public dollars should go to communities that may already receive other state support for affordable housing. The debate is playing out as towns across the state grapple with what to do with shuttered schools, ranging from buildings that are ready for a second life to those that require expensive repairs or structural changes.
In Brooks, where the former Morse Memorial Elementary School once held up to 350 students, voters are set to consider another step in the property’s future. Enrollment at the school dropped below 100 before the town voted to close it last year, and on March 21 residents will decide whether the town should absorb ownership of the building—and associated costs—from the school district. Ray Quimby, a lifelong Brooks resident who now serves on the town’s planning board, said the building “can either be an asset or a detriment,” adding that his preference is to make it an asset.
One potential reuse pathway is residential conversion, a concept that fits into a broader effort lawmakers are evaluating. Lawmakers are debating whether to create the $5 million fund under L.D. 2164 to provide technical and financial assistance for towns turning vacant school buildings into housing. Under the proposal, the state would cover items including environmental assessments, comprehensive plan development, environmental clean-up and identifying financing possibilities, but the bill would not finance projects for buildings owned by school districts or already sold to developers. Even so, the Maine Redevelopment Land Bank Authority could still work with those entities if a town requested it on their behalf.
The land bank, created by the Legislature in 2022 to help local governments put defunct buildings back to work, has already begun identifying candidate properties. Tuck O’Brien, executive director of Maine Redevelopment, said the authority has so far identified 27 former schools across the state that could fit the bill, including the Brooks building. He said the land bank learns about new sites through news reports or outreach efforts, and he described schools as potentially attractive for housing redevelopment because they are often connected to sewer systems and are located close to community resources.
At the same time, O’Brien said the buildings can present barriers that complicate development. Schools’ age can mean renovation problems or insufficient space for redevelopment plans, and towns may pursue alternatives such as converting schools into community centers or mixed-use spaces. He said the Maine Department of Education maintains a list of closed schools, but that the data only goes back about a decade, and it is not always clear whether a closure leaves an empty building or if a new school has filled the space. O’Brien added that some former schools are in housing-demand areas where private developers might quickly take interest, while others may need to be torn down due to poor conditions.
Those “middle” situations—properties that are neither clearly turnkey nor clearly unworkable—are often the most difficult, O’Brien said, citing structural problems such as poor insulation or a failure to score well on traditional tax credit programs used for rehabilitation. He said the land bank’s goal is to get properties back to work, not only to create housing, and he argued that any reuse can drive broader economic revival for a community. “Housing is some of the hardest stuff to do,” O’Brien said. “But nothing else works in a community without housing.”
Some lawmakers questioned whether the state’s assistance should extend broadly, and particularly whether it risks overlapping with existing affordable housing programs. At a March 3 work session before the Legislature’s Committee on Housing and Economic Development, Rep. Amanda Collamore, R-Pittsfield, asked O’Brien whether there would be a way to prevent people from accessing the fund if they had already received assistance from state affordable housing programs, describing the issue as “double dipping.” O’Brien said the fund would be reserved for projects unable to get off the ground without additional money, describing it as support for efforts where the “pie chart just doesn’t get full no matter what you do,” and pointing to examples in Union, New Sweden and Van Buren.
Collamore and two other Republicans voted against the bill at the committee hearing, where it passed 8-3. Collamore said it would be unfair for her constituents—where three elementary schools may close under a consolidation plan—to fund other municipalities’ projects “when they already pay for so much.” If the bill passes both chambers, it still would need to be funded by the Legislature’s appropriations committee.
Developers and academics involved in the closure landscape say the starting point for many proposals is the same problem: fewer students and tighter finances. The biggest reasons schools close are declining enrollment and financial challenges, said Mara Tieken, a professor at Bates College who has studied how rural school closures affect communities. In Maine, she said both pressures are present; the article cited that the education department shows enrollment in schools has dropped 6.6 percent over a decade. This year, the Governor’s Commission on School Construction reported that 497 school buildings needed major structural overhaul or new construction, costly improvements such as energy systems and code updates, or light upgrades, with a total cost estimated at more than $11 billion.
Tieken said districts with smaller student bodies often have less of a tax base to fund improvements, and she added that Maine’s population is the oldest in the nation, leading to fewer young families and children. “There are less young families, less young children,” she said.
Eric Chinberg, a New Hampshire-based developer who has converted historic buildings such as mills into housing and office space, said the decision to redevelop a school can be tricky because schools often vary in architecture and size. He described mills as easier conversion projects, saying they tend to be centrally located, close to rivers, and designed with features such as high ceilings and large windows that can support modern redevelopment needs. For Chinberg, smaller feasibility calculations can change quickly as construction costs and interest rates rise. He said he converted the Hilltop School in Somersworth, New Hampshire, into 22 apartments after leveraging federal and state tax credits in 2020, but he argued that a small project like that might not be feasible for many developers now, saying “We’re passing on school opportunities because we can’t make the numbers work,” and that “It costs more to renovate a nice-looking school than to build a new building.”
Chinberg said communities considering reuse also need a creative approach. He said he chose to revamp a mill in Saco based on the assumption that people in Portland and other more expensive cities might commute, saying “We were betting on people being priced out, and it worked.”
Brooks, like other Maine towns, is working through options for its vacant school, but not everyone has prioritized housing. The town created a committee to study possibilities for the elementary school, and an architectural assessment identified a range of renovation levels depending on the intended use: minimal upgrades for studio or office space, moderate changes for some sort of community space, and substantial changes for day care or residential space. A demographic study found Brooks short about 27 units of housing and that day care needs are high, but a community forum and survey of 115 people found residents were most interested in Morse becoming a community or recreation center, or a private or charter school, rather than housing. Slightly more than half of respondents said they wanted the town to keep the building.
While Quimby said Brooks is looking to the future and has received a grant from the Maine Department of Transportation for a downtown feasibility study, he personally thinks the Morse building could support a mix of uses, including housing, office space, recreation space and a commercial kitchen. He described Brooks’ planning as still early, with the March 21 vote representing a step toward deciding ownership and next use.
In Van Buren, officials have faced the question for more than 15 years. Town Manager Luke Dyer said the former Gateway Elementary School building is in good shape—“well pickled,” in his words—because a heating system was replaced before the school closed and there is no smell despite years of vacancy. Dyer said there has been interest, but developers backed out after they had to locate original 1970 floor plans and send engineers to assess the property. “By the time you’re looking at funding stacks, developers have spent thousands of dollars and haven’t even put a new nail in the building,” Dyer said.
Dyer said he is working with the land bank along with Brooks and other towns, including Union. He said Van Buren’s location affects expectations for redevelopment, saying that as a town on the border with Canada, “Van Buren’s main export is people,” and describing the community as having a large elderly population. He said he does not want developers to count the town out and believes two rocket companies in northern Maine will bring hundreds of workers who need places to live, noting that the town has its own electric utility. He said a dedicated state fund for rehabbing schools could help the town assemble an assessment package that lays groundwork for developers to look at a building without spending money on initial studies.
Dyer said he thinks the school could become a success story similar to the former Hilltop Elementary School in Caribou, which was turned into senior housing after the town closed several schools. Like Quimby, he expressed support for a mixed-use approach, saying he would like the town to retain access to the gym and cafeteria while converting other space into housing for people ages 50 and up. “There’s a lot of focus on revitalizing multi-generation connections, where housing is being paired with community spaces,” Dyer said. “It creates better living for everyone.”