Ground Broken for Claremont School Adaptive Reuse Project

Town and County officials broke ground on the Claremont School Adaptive Reuse Project on Tuesday, Jan. 28. (William Paine photos/Patriot Publishing)

By WILLIAM PAINE

Patriot Publishing

Town and County officials gathered Tuesday behind the old Claremont Elementary School in Pulaski for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of an adaptive re-use project that will create 50 new dwellings.

The $15 million adaptive re-use project will renovate the Claremont Elementary school building by creating 23 one and two-bedroom units, designed for elderly individuals or small families. Some of these apartments will have kitchenettes. There will also be exercise rooms and gathering places within the structure.

A foundation is currently being dug for a second structure containing 27 two- and three-bedroom units, which will be built on the property behind the Claremont school building. This newer building will be three stories high and will contain an elevator along with other amenities including a laundry room.

Pulaski County Community Development Manager John Crockett, who has been deeply involved in this project, gave the opening remarks for the groundbreaking ceremony. Pulaski County Administrator Jonathan Sweet next addressed the crowd stating, “It takes a village to create a village and within that village is a constellation of partnerships.”

Sweet mentioned several entities involved in making the Claremont School Adaptive Re-use Project a reality including town and county leadership and their administrations, as well as the EDA, the New River Valley Housing Trust Fund, the New River Valley Home Consortium, the NRV Regional Housing Trust Fund, the NRV Regional Commission, the National Housing Trust Fund, the VCDC, Locust Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank. Financing for the project comes from low interest loans, tax credits and federal and state monetary contributions.

Sweet added that completing this structure with its 50 new living spaces will help the county achieve the goal of having 40,000 residents live in Pulaski County by the year 2030.

Pulaski Mayor Shannon Collins told the assembled crowd that, “This is going to be for the working class and the elderly … Pulaski is a Phoenix and we will continue to rise. Great stuff is happening in Pulaski.”

Town Manager Todd Day added that, “A locality that ceases to grow, ceases to exist.”

According to John Stiltner of the Landmark Group, work on the Claremont School building should be completed by February of 2026 and the new building should be ready for occupancy a month later. The Landmark group is based in Winston-Salem as are project architects CJMW.

“Creating a community is what we came here to do,” said Stiltner.

Colmar Contracting of Greensboro is the general contractor on the project.

Claremont Elementary School was built in 1952 and functioned as a school for more than half a century before being closed due to consolidation. Since then, the building became dilapidated, but by 2018, town and county leaders began trying to find ways to rehabilitate the old school. This week, their efforts paid off.

With the speeches done, several of those involved in the project donned hard hats before taking their shovels and symbolically breaking ground on this adaptive re-use project.

After the dirt flew, project developer John Stiltner invited all those in attendance to smash the diamond shaped windows that were once visible on the school’s exterior, but are not part of the rehabilitation. With this, county officials handed out hammers, safety glasses and rubber gloves to all of those who wanted to take a crack at the old windows and several individuals took up the offer and broke one of the old windows before departing.