{"id":247550,"date":"2026-07-20T09:43:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T09:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247550\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T09:43:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T09:43:31","slug":"philadelphia-housing-historic-school-to-become-senior-apartments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247550\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia housing: Historic school to become senior apartments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from you! <a href=\"#Section1\">Ask us a question or send us a story idea you think we should cover.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>More than two decades after Rudolph Walton Elementary closed, a nonprofit developer is preparing to breathe new life into the historic North Philadelphia school.\n<\/p>\n<p>The blighted stone building on North 22nd Street near Huntingdon in Strawberry Mansion will be converted into a 50-unit apartment building for older adults with low incomes.\n<\/p>\n<p>The homes will all be subsidized through a partnership with the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-housing-authority-affordable-units-opening-doors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia Housing Authority<\/a>, which owns the building and the land.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is really a special opportunity,\u201d said Emma Colley, vice president of affordable housing development at HELP Development Corp. \u201cFirstly, restoring such a beautiful building and, more importantly, providing the neighbors and community members with a whole vibrant space that they can be a part of.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The units will all be one-bedroom and available to people aged 55 and above.\n<\/p>\n<p>A total of 37 units will be affordable to individuals earning up to 50% of the area median income. The rest will be priced for residents earning up to 30% of AMI.\n<\/p>\n<p>That translates to between $25,770 and $42,950 a year.\n<\/p>\n<p>The $34 million project is backed by <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-affordable-housing-rentals-mayor-parker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Low-Income Housing Tax Credits<\/a>, meaning they will remain affordable for at least 40 years after construction.\n<\/p>\n<p>A neighborhood \u2018eyesore\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Built in 1900, the four-story property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is not locally designated, meaning it is not protected against demolition.\n<\/p>\n<p>The school closed in 2003, shuttered as part of a larger series of closings carried out by the School District of Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n<p>The housing authority bought the abandoned building in 2015 to develop into affordable housing. The purchase came after KIPP Philadelphia, a charter school operator, <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/kipp-backs-out-of-deal-to-buy-vacant-philadelphia-school\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">backed out of a deal<\/a> to buy and renovate the property for one of its high school programs.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have a question about Philly\u2019s neighborhoods or the systems that shape them? PlanPhilly reporters want to hear from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,2312,45672,6705],"class_list":["post-247550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-planphilly","tag-senior-housing","tag-strawberry-mansion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}