Jones School purchase agreement extended

When the Putnam County Commissioners agreed in principle last August to sell the former Jones School to a developer for senior housing, the sale was contingent upon clearing two hurdles.

So far, Milestone Ventures is one-for-two in its quest.

The first was obtaining approval from the City of Greencastle, which it did from the City Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals and City Council.

The second point, obtaining Indiana tax credits for the project, has hit a bit of a snag.

The developer, which completed a similar project at Miller School (now Miller Asbury Apartments) in 2015, applied for credits in November but found out in February that the project was not approved for this round of tax credits.

However, Milestone remains optimistic about the next round of applications, therefore asking the Putnam County Commissioners for a six-month extension of the original purchase agreement.

The commissioners approved the request 3-0 earlier this week.

The original purchase agreement ran through July 2019.

The hope is that the tax credit issue only slightly delays redevelopment of Jones School into Emma Jones Village.

“If everything goes according to plan, the latest it would be done would be January of 2020,” County Attorney Jim Ensley told the commissioners.

If completed, Emma Jones Village will become the third Milestone development in Greencastle, joining Miller Asbury as well as Millstone Pointe Apartments.

Because of the receipt of tax credits, seniors will have to qualify through income guidelines. Typical monthly rents will be $250-$545 for one-bedroom units and $300-$595 for two-bedroom apartments.

Situated at the corner of Madison and Liberty streets, Mary Emma Jones School served elementary school students on the city’s West Side from 1954 until 2001, when Greencastle Community School Corporation opened Deer Meadow Primary School and realigned its elementary services into two primary schools (Deer Meadow and Ridpath) for kindergarten through second grade and Tzouanakis Intermediate School for all third- through fifth-graders.

GCSC sold the building to the county for $1 in 2002 and it housed county offices until late 2011, when climbing maintenance costs forced the county to remove all office and meeting spaces from the old building.

County storage has remained in the building for the last seven years, although the storage of essential records has been consolidated into the gymnasium and two other rooms due to a badly leaking roof.

The final sale of the property will take away the storage option as well as the possibility of future county development on the property.

However, the commissioners unanimously approved the $100,000 sale price back in August, as demolition of the building would have cost an estimated $130,000.

The county plans to retain ownership of one acre of property along Madison Street north of the property.