What would you do if you had the chance to buy a school with immense historical significance?
Three real estate investors have an answer to that question – turn it into an apartment complex.
The idea leads to the answer quite naturally – you have a space partitioned into different rooms and sections already.
You have spaces for recreation and community building, and it’s a structure designed for people to stay in for long periods of time.
The story starts with Jesse Wig in 2019.
He was given an off-market deal for the old high school in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The school has been lying empty for almost a decade.
At first glance, Wig knew the building had tons of potential, but it wasn’t a project he could handle all by himself. He needed to sell the idea to possible co-investors.
He then contacted Adam Colucci, a business owner, and Dan Spanovich, a lawyer.
And despite their “day jobs,” all of them are seasoned real estate investors. The three then agreed to buy the school for $100,000.
That is a lot of money already, but they haven’t gotten into the mammoth task that will make them doubt their investment.
At first, they didn’t know what to do with the property.
The first idea they had was to renovate all the lifestyle areas like the gym and the auditorium and have them leased like some of the spaces inside the school.
In the end, they settled on renovating it into an apartment complex.
The whole project demanded a lot of resources for them to achieve their dream build.
The trio had to pool $1.3 million from their own pockets then they took out a loan of $2 million dollars.
“I’m not sure we would have done the renovation in the beginning if we would have known what it was going to take,” Spanovich said to CNBC.
The result is breathtaking!
For them to be able to retain the tax incentive for being a historical place, they kept most of the exterior designs. They also retained much of the original staircases and tiles.
They turned the auditorium into a common area for tenants while they converted the gym into a wellness area.
The classrooms, of course, were turned into apartment rooms.
Each place has complete amenities from a full kitchen, a toilet and bath, ample space for dining and lounging, bedrooms, and tons of natural light from the original window placements.
The fixtures and furniture are so tastefully picked and installed.
All in all, they were able to build 31 units.
One-bedroom apartments start at $1,400 while two-bedroom apartments cost about $1,600.
As of October 2021, Bowtie High had reached 100% occupancy.
Talk about an easy return on investment!
In 2020, with hopes high, the trio also bought another school just across the street. They bought the adjacent building for $90,000. They said they mainly bought the school so that they could build a community between the two buildings.
Watch how these real estate investors turned a historical site into a classy apartment complex.
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