TRAVERSE CITY — Brick by brick, Traverse City Area Public Schools’ plans to reshuffle its administrative and school facilities are coming together.
District Superintendent John VanWagoner said city Planning Commissioners’ 6-0 vote to recommend rezoning the Ida Tompkins Administration Building from two-family residential to D-2 Development is one part of that. The district will start moving administrative offices in April into the Glenn Loomis school building at Oak and Griffin streets.
That’ll clear the way for Boardman Building LLC, a company Eric Gerstner and Ken Richmond created, to buy the Ida Tompkins Administration Building and rehabilitate it for another use. City Planner Shawn Winter said that could include housing, a reuse that VanWagoner called a win for the TCAPS board, the surrounding neighborhood and the future owner.
“Obviously, our community has very much stated an interest in preserving the historical nature of the building, and be able to contribute to housing,” VanWagoner said.
The former Boardman Elementary School is at Boardman Avenue and Webster Street, and is named after the district’s first woman administrator, Ida Tompkins.
Gerstner, a builder and developer, said plans for repurposing the building are still in the works. He and Richmond are investigating mixed uses, most likely a combination of residential and offices, with the details to be determined.
“We’re still modeling different cost analyses to see what’s both affordable to do and judging demand for different uses,” Gerstner said prior to the meeting.
Both Gerstner and Richmond lived near the school building for years, and stepped in to save it from demolition when a previous potential buyer raised the possibility, Gerstner said. Tear-downs are often the easiest way to deal with old structures, but he called the move short-sighted.
The business partners both consider the building to be a landmark, and all too often people regret the loss of such structures when they’re gone, Gerstner said.
A short-handed planning commission — Jackie Anderson, Anna Dituri and Brian McGillivary were absent — asked a few questions about those plans, and heard no public comment. Commissioner David Knapp asked if the current R-2 residential zoning could serve the proposed use, with Winter responding it couldn’t. That classification essentially limits residential uses to two families per lot, Winter continued.
Making the zoning change — which city commissioners must ultimately decide at a future meeting — would make sense, as it would extend the existing D-2 Development district along Eighth Street, Winter said. Future land use maps in the city’s master plan also show the school property straddling two neighborhood types, one of which is the most developed.
Commissioner Mitchell Treadwell echoed another point Winter made in his memo to planners: Ida Tompkins Administration Building is currently a legal, nonconforming use under R-2 zoning, so changing it to D-2 would bring it into conformance.
Allowed uses under D-2 are expansive, and Gerstner said prior to the meeting it would permit everything he and Richmond hope to accomplish there.
Rezoning the building is one condition in the purchase agreement between TCAPS and Boardman Building LLC, as previously reported.
The company should take possession in June, giving the company a chance to plan so it can get started right away, Gerstner said.
“But it’s still not going to be a quick project, so I would think it’s an 18-month project,” he said. “But we’re pushing ahead with development plans so that we really know what we’re doing the day we own it.”
Gerstner said he’s repurposed older buildings before, including the former Tru Fit Trouser factory on Woodmere Avenue. So has Richmond — he bought and renovated Building 88, known as Old Munson Hall, at the Grand Traverse Commons, and his architectural firm has an office there, according to Gerstner and Richmond.
Work could already be underway at the former administration building when district voters decide on the keystone piece to TCAPS’ facilities plans.
On Aug. 6, those voters will decide on TCAPS’ proposal to borrow $180 million through a bond sale, as previously reported. That would pay for several school facilities upgrades, including extensive renovations to Central Grade School. The Central Neighborhood fixture between Seventh, Pine, Eighth and Wadsworth streets is the district’s oldest school.
If approved, property owners affected by the millage would still pay the district’s 3.1-mill levy, the same voters adopted in 2018 for an earlier bond issue.
Overhauling Central Grade School would require moving classes from there to the Glenn Loomis Building, VanWagoner said Tuesday. The district would move its administrative offices Sabin Data Center, another former elementary school at Cass and Hartman roads, moving back to Glenn Loomis once classes in Central Grade School resume.
Montessori classes, formerly in Glenn Loomis Building, started at the new TCAPS Montessori building at Franke and Silver Lake roads with the start of the 2023-24 school year, as previously reported.
VanWagoner agreed Tuesday’s vote was one small piece of a much bigger plan, adding he appreciated all the work Boardman Building LLC put as of yet into saving the administration building.
Gerstner returned that praise following planner’s vote.
“It’s all about the next step, you know,” he said. “So we’ve got a great relationship with TCAPS, they’re really supportive of what we’re trying to do, and so it’s exciting.”