High hopes that hundreds of housing solutions can be created inside former Windsor high school

Historic school to be turned into housing CTV Windsor’s Chris Campbell explains what’s needed to maintain historic integrity as the city looks to convert a school into housing.

Nearly two weeks have passed since Windsor released a list of municipal lands owned by the city that have been identified to make shovel ready for residential development and hopes are high to attract proposals.

The city still needs to issue expressions of interest for the former W.D. Lowe Secondary School at 874 Giles Blvd. E., with Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens forecasting upwards of $100 million necessary to see the former high school repurposed into new housing solutions.

“The plan for all of these properties that council has approved is to have the private sector do the development,” said Dilkens. “The city doesn't build housing itself so we have to work with the private development community to see a project like this happen.”

Dilkens said preserving the facade of the former school is important while working to see the construction of as much housing as practically possible on that land that's contextual and appropriate to the neighborhood.

“I know a project of that size and scope will cost upwards of $100 million to see completed,” Dilkens said. “It is a big project, but will also generate big results in terms of the number of units created.”

He continued, “City council is determined to move forward. They've approved moving forward with a housing project there. Now the devil is in the details to make sure we put out the right expression of interest, get the right developers to the table and then proceed with the project.”

Dilkens explained, “Lowe is a good example of where city council made a decision to acquire the property from the school board. So we spent about $1.6 million acquiring that property. Now we're going to go back out and put it on the street and hope that the development community comes back with a project the size and scale of which will be quite robust in terms of property taxes, but also the number of units that they're going to build.”

He continued, “We're open to anything. We're not cemented in on one particular course of action. And so there's some work that there still has to be done to make sure that the land is clean. We're going to do all of that work. At the end of the day, we want to preserve the facade. We know that that is a heritage feature and it's important to the community. At the same time, you may get a developer who comes back saying, ‘If you give us the land for free, a portion of the units will be affordable,’ and city council will do that calculation to determine whether that's a good investment.”

“Others may say, ‘We'll give you full market value for the land and this is what we propose to do moving forward.’ These types of responses to the expression of interest is what needs to be evaluated before city council can make the final decision. But in any scenario, the project of that size and scope is going to cost upwards of $100 million,” said Dilkens.

Ward 3 Coun. Renaldo Agostino said he believes hundreds of housing units could come to the property.

“It is a great opportunity for the community to really put a big dent in the housing crisis,” exclaimed Agostino. “It's a giant property, certainly with historical value and it's in a great neighborhood. And I think it's going to be fantastic and I'm looking forward to seeing some expressions of interest come through to council for us to vote on not only for Lowe, but also the properties downtown.”

Agostino said there are some challenges to repurposing vacant schools or office space, but believes it’s worth the effort to address the housing crisis.

“The heritage component for sure is one of them,” Agostino said. “I've been really putting a lot of research into office towers and buildings to be converted into housing and some of them, it's cheaper and more efficient to tear them down and start brand new than it is to try and put bathrooms everywhere and vice versa. So I'm looking forward to seeing, first of all, what the details of what the EOI are going to be, because the city hasn't released it yet. I'm looking forward to seeing community partners or people from out of town, people who want to invest in our city and really put a big solid dent into the housing crisis because you could do something really big there.”

Agostino told CTV News more municipal properties are being identified for housing solutions, suggesting more will be revealed soon, “There is more to come, absolutely. There's more to come and you know, the city of Windsor is going to try its best to really do its part in managing and solving the housing crisis and it's not just about solving the housing crisis. There's also the component of creating a community, growing our city, becoming a small big city, rather than a big small city and what does that is people and getting people places to live is number one on the list.”

Agostino noted, “Any building that is not being occupied, it’s something that I'm willing to explore. Any empty green space, any empty building, any empty parking lot, above parking lots, I'm ready to go wherever we can. And I think now's the time to be aggressive. Now's the time to get the job done.”