Financing Efforts Continue on Old Housatonic School Project

Work continues on a proposal for the reuse of the former Housatonic School but at this point there are no tenants who have officially signed on and financing efforts continue.

The Berkshire Edge.com reports that Grayhouse Partners put forward a proposal last summer for a “public-private partnership” for the building. The plan, the only one the town has so far received for the latest request for proposals, is for an adaptive reuse of the vacant 110-year-old school on Pleasant Street near the center of the Housatonic section of Great Barrington. It calls for a mixed use of the building that includes a combination of housing and work space, with seven affordable rental units and a total of 14,000 square feet of commercial office space.

Grayhouse principal Bill Nappo and his financial consultant, Gillette Conner told the Selectboard this week that they are working closely with MassDevelopment, a state economic development agency, on securing financing.

The former community elementary school opened in 1909 and has remained mostly empty since 2003 when the Berkshire Hills Regional School District consolidated its schools with a new regional elementary- and middle-school campus on Monument Valley Road.