With planning, communities can embrace closed schools

With the recent announcement that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would close or merge 34 Catholic schools in Philadelphia, a city already yoked with an unenviable number of vacant lots and deteriorating buildings (not to mention surface parking lots), is presented with a fresh inventory whose decay potentially starts now.

While the educational challenges presented by these changes are daunting, and many schools are battling to remain active (and I do hope they succeed), forethought should be given to the potential reuse of these buildings so that they can continue to serve their neighborhoods. This effort should be undertaken now, long before market pressures and building decay force the archdiocese and communities to make rash decisions that bring an unfitting end (usually demolition) to noble buildings created for noble purposes. It's time to develop an action plan for the transition of these buildings long before they are slouching inexorably toward blight.

As we've seen in Philadelphia over the last few years, planning has the power to bring communities together. A community planning process for each closing property can identify needs in the neighborhood and possible re-uses, as well as provide parameters for redevelopment, welcome guidelines that will create certainty for developers.

The city is rich with organizations experienced in this sort of process: Partners for Sacred Spaces helps communities and organizations envision creative uses for religious buildings; the Community Design Collaborative has helped many community organizations develop plans for nascent assets; PennPraxis uses the resources of the University of Pennsylvania to engage citizens and create visions for solving problems. The archdiocese also has great in-house experience in reusing school buildings to create senior housing at St. John Neumann in South Philadelphia and Nativity BVM in Port Richmond.

Reuse takes imagination, patience, and resolve. Successful projects will have common characteristics:

Leadership committed to the project for the long haul.

Community engagement and support.

The will to follow up on ideas generated in a planning process.

The ability to create or partner with an organization (likely a nonprofit) to manage the property.

Patience in identifying resources or developers who recognize the opportunity and respect the community's intention.