Seniors could feel like kids again with Miller School redevelopment

By ERIC BERNSEE

Editor

A building that served generations of Greencastle residents in their youth could come back to life in their golden years as senior housing under a proposal now before the City of Greencastle.

Miller School, last used as for classrooms in 1980 and old enough to have separate entrances with "Girls" and "Boys" carved into the limestone at opposite ends of the building, would be converted into senior housing units under a proposal from Milestone Ventures of Indianapolis.

Old Miller School at 522 Anderson St. in Greencastle -- a building old enough to have had separate entrances for "girls" and "boys" -- could become senior housing under a proposal approved this week by the Board of Works.

The Milestone proposal was one of five submitted to the city for the site at 522 Anderson St. -- all senior housing projects fueled by available tax credits. Size of the proposals ranged from 30 to 42 units.

Senior housing makes sense to longtime community members like City Councilor Jinsie Bingham.

"A lot of people thought they'd never get out of that building," she joked at a recent meeting.

Milestone Ventures won praise for a thorough proposal that even came with paperwork filled out for a future Zoning Board appearance.

The development group already has a presence in Greencastle after developing Milestone Point project between Martinsville and South streets on the city's southeast side.

"As a reviewing team," City Planner Shannon Norman said, "we believed Milestone to be the best choice."

In fact, that belief was unanimously shared among the four-person review team.

Approval allows city officials to begin negotiating a purchase agreement with Milestone.

The 30 proposed units, Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray said earlier in the week, will include 12 one-bedroom units and 18 two-bedroom units.

Milestone plans to renovate the Miller School building into a number of units and also redevelop the other part of the property with new units. It is expected that the one-story addition on the southeast side of the building, last utilized when the site housed the Area 30 Career Center, will be razed.

"The neighbors should be very happy," Greencastle Redevelopment Commission member Gwen Morris said after hearing the news during a meeting Wednesday evening.

City Planner Norman agreed.

"Especially since the old building is staying," Norman said, "so it retains the feel of the neighborhood."

Interestingly, the proposed purchase price accompanying each of the five proposals exceeded the $40,000 appraisal the city had received on the property, city officials said.

Milestone will need to make application by Nov. 1 in order to secure tax credits for senior housing, city officials said.

The proposal is contingent upon that happening (as it was with all five submissions), so the actual sale and transfer of property isn't expected until 2014, City Attorney Laurie Hardwick noted.

The senior units will be neither Section 8-eligible nor low-income, subsidized housing, officials said.

It will be a straight you--pay-your-rent arrangement, although some rents could be at a lower rate because of tax credits.

If the project continues to progress toward closure, it will eventually need a special exception from the Greencastle Board of Zoning Appeals.

Mayor Murray noted that Milestone officials also plan to do at least two public input sessions on the project.

The building was last known as Miller Education Center, used as the Greencastle Community Schools Central Office until those offices were moved to Ridpath Primary School in 2010.

Miller was the school corporation's oldest building, although there appears to be no building date on the outside of the structure. Besides the GCSC administration and maintenance offices, it also once housed the offices for Old National Trail and West Central Indiana Educational Service Center.

Local authorities discovered in 2012 that the building was actually the property of the City of Greencastle, not the school corporation.

"As much as we didn't know we owned Miller School," Mayor Murray said recently, "there was a small piece of property (0.67 acres, south of the modern addition on the back of the school) still in the name of the school corporation that we had to clear title on."

That was accomplished this month by the school corporation and City Council each passing resolutions for the transfer. No money exchanged hands.

The city will retain the parcel of property that has been used for Robe-Ann Park parking, the mayor noted.