A group of three men with grand ambitions have turned an abandoned high school building into 31 luxury apartments. With the success of this massive renovation, they’re doing it all over again with the high school across the street.
When Pittsburgh realtor Jesse Wig found the abandoned former Auberle Education Center in Homestead, Pennsylvania, listed for sale for just $100,000, he saw potential, reported CNBC Make It. Without a fixed idea for its renovation, Wig snapped up the building in May 2019, then enlisted another real estate investor, Adam Colucci, to brainstorm.
Wig and Colucci got Dan Spanovich, a developer and property manager, on board. According to the report, Spanovich could see the scale of the task ahead but claims the trio was “willing to take a risk regardless.” “We knew that at this cost, we would be able to find some use for it that would generate enough return to satisfy everybody,” Spanovich said.
The abandoned high school boasted an area of 50,000 square feet but only 25,000 square feet of it was leasable as apartments since much was taken up by hallways, staircases, and communal space, the report said. A plan emerged for 27 luxury one-bedroom apartments, and four two-bedroom apartments, a gym, and a communal auditorium.
Construction began in early 2020.
Wig, Colucci, and Spanovich prioritized retaining the school building’s original features.
By October 2021, the former high school was transformed. Within six months, every single apartment was rented, with one-bedroom apartments leased for around $1,400 a month and two-bedroom apartments for up to $1,650, according to the report.
The partners split profits and expenses based on their “proportional share of the building,” but before they had even completed their first joint renovation they had already invested in another. The school building across the street was also listed for sale and when the buyer dropped out in August 2020, the trio swooped in and secured the building for $90,000, the report said.
“I think it was an amazing move,” Colucci told CNBC. “We are very happy about it and have been very lucky.”
This second school building needed “extensive repairs,” including mending a leaky roof, and had a more spooky exterior which Spanovich claimed worked in their favor.
“When the buildings look nice, you get a lot of people bidding on them, so you almost want them to look like haunted houses so you have less competition,” he told the outlet.
The trio is planning to build 33 one-bedroom and studio apartments inside the second school, with the communal auditorium and a double-decker parking garage shared between the two buildings. The second school will contribute a rooftop deck.
Wig, Colucci, and Spanovich have already witnessed their renovation work improve the local community, according to the report. They have recently bought two more schools together, earmarked for similar renovations.
