A long-ago closed school building on the south side of Pueblo, Colorado may be repurposed as an apartment complex.
The Strack School, located in a residential part of the city at the intersection of West Fairview Avenue and Elm Street, has been closed but maintained by the Pueblo School District 60 for longer than many residents can remember: at least 50 years.
Now the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority is contemplating a plan that would see the large three-story brick building given a new life as housing.
As proposed, that housing would be specifically for teachers, an idea with some traction in a city that has seen the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment increase from $800 some five years ago to nearly $1,300 today.
“I think what we would like to do is gear it towards an incentive program for first-time schoolteachers,” Jerry Pacheco, the executive director of the Renewal Authority, recently remarked to the Pueblo Chieftain.
The school was built in 1941 and originally primarily served Italian-American residents, many of whom had moved to Pueblo to work in the mills of the Colorado Coal and Iron Company.
The Strack School was officially closed in 1959, but in the following decade housed a children-with-special-needs program, and in recent years has been largely used for storage by the district.
A study is currently being conducted under the auspices of the Renewal Authority to determine the cost and scope of repurposing the building.
By Garry Boulard
