Preservation Trust urges earlier planning and funding for school building reuse

Ben Doyle, president of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, told the House General & Housing Committee on April 16, 2025, that Vermont towns need earlier planning and predictable technical and financial support if closed school buildings are to be turned into housing, community centers or other community assets.

Doyle spoke at a subject-matter hearing that the committee held to explore “school building reuse,” saying that reuse often happens only after a school has closed. "If a school closed right now, you got a three person select board that's really focused on a lot of other things...and they would say, 'oh, jeez. What do we do with this school?,'" he said.

The discussion matters because, Doyle said, school consolidation and closures are likely to continue in the short term and the cost of holding vacant buildings can quickly become a burden on small towns. Using Roxbury as an example, Doyle said the district faces about $60,000 in annual carrying costs for a closed school. "I do know that it's $60,000 a year in carrying costs," he said, adding that the district had not yet identified an end use or sustainable funding streams.

Doyle described a range of adaptive-reuse outcomes the trust has supported across Vermont, from modest one- to two-building conversions to very large projects. He cited Bridgewater — converted to an adult day-care and child-care center in a project he described as "under a million and a half" — and Lincoln Place in Rutland, which provides transitional housing. He also discussed ambitious, large-scale projects such as the planned Park Street School redevelopment in downtown Springfield, which he said is a roughly $25 million innovation-center project driven by regional development leaders.

Funding stacks for adaptive reuse are complex, Doyle said. Successful projects typically combine many sources — federal grants and programs, state resources such as the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB), congressionally directed spending, regional commissions and private philanthropy. He noted that the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit is often a key element: "If you can access the federal historic tax credit program that can cover 20% of the project cost, it's worth your time to follow the Secretary of the Interior standards for historic preservation," he said.

Doyle and other witnesses said lack of municipal capacity is a frequent barrier: small select boards and town staffs do not have the time, technical expertise or predevelopment funds to do feasibility studies, environmental assessments and initial stabilization work. The Preservation Trust and partners rely on small discretionary grants, municipal technical assistance (MTAP) funding, and regional partners to provide early assessments and coaching; Doyle described a Preservation Trust model in which field staff perform initial condition assessments and then bring in architects, engineers and development consultants as needed.

The trust is launching a Village Trust Initiative, Doyle said, using congressionally directed spending to provide wraparound predevelopment services to about 20 small towns over five to seven years. "We're going to work with 20 communities of 2,500 or fewer...they're getting the architect, the engineer, and some significant implementation funding in the hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said.

Witnesses warned that different school building types pose different technical and financial challenges. Nineteenth-century brick schoolhouses often convert more readily to housing, they said; mid-century sprawling schools present more environmental, mechanical and design complexity. Doyle also raised environmental hazards such as PCB contamination in some mid-century buildings as a practical complication.

Committee members and witnesses discussed governance and stewardship trade-offs between strict preservation and practical reuse. Doyle framed preservation as "good stewardship" and said preservation approaches can align with sustainability goals by retaining embodied carbon in original building fabric. He also emphasized that reuse decisions must be community-driven and that planning should include the community's grieving and identity work when a school closes.

Committee members asked for case studies; Doyle said the Preservation Trust is preparing two-page case studies of several retrofit types and expects to share materials within a few weeks. The committee scheduled additional witnesses on the subject and told members they would use the testimony to consider next steps.