School-to-apartment transformation

• The Higginbotham School was an "all-Black elementary school for over 80 years," with "unique Mediterranean Revival-style architecture," per the City Planning Commission.

The latest: The project, which also entails constructing two new residential buildings with 60 total additional units, requires property rezoning to move forward. It got a positive recommendation from the planning commission last week and now needs City Council approval.

• The developer is Detroit-based Urge Development Group, Crain's reported.
• The city and Urge are working on a purchase deal, per the planning commission.
• Urge CEO Rod Hardamon said during a public meeting he hopes the project could become a "model" for school redevelopment as part of revitalizing a neighborhood. When a school shuts, it's a "bellwether sign to where the neighborhood is trending." But the same could be true when that building gets new use.

Flashback: The historic school was built in 1926-27 for kindergarten through eighth grade. It served the Eight Mile-Wyoming neighborhood populated with working-class Black families moving to the city around that time, as racist redlining policies limited where Black residents could live, per city documents.

• It eventually became a charter school in 2006 and closed in 2013.