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Americans are having fewer children than ever, which leaves municipalities with a puzzling question: what to do with schools that no longer have kids to fill them?
Incentivized by federal and local tax credits and governments’ desires to build more housing, developers increasingly are converting shuttered school buildings into residential properties as redevelopments of aging properties of all stripes have been thrust into national headlines with questions over their feasibility.
Across the U.S., more than 370 school facilities have been turned into apartment complexes since the 1980s, according to data as of the beginning of 2025 from real estate research firm Yardi Matrix. The projects have created some 35,100 housing units. The peak year for conversions was 2024, with 12 projects delivering almost 2,000 units, according to Yardi’s data.
The trend shows no sign of slowing down, particularly as parts of the country face declining school-age populations. There are 78 projects across 42 markets under construction or in the planning stages that are set to deliver some 9,000 units, according to Yardi.
A sizable portion of the school conversion pipeline is in the Midwest, from Ohio to Oklahoma, which has long been underdeveloped. Cleveland-Akron, Ohio leads the country with 773 units across seven projects, one of which is still prospective, per Yardi’s accounting. Pittsburgh follows, with 569 units across three projects in the works.
For Larry Curtis, chairman of WinnDevelopment, which since the 1980s has converted nine schools into apartments with a total of 993 units, turning schools into housing is “ideal.” They have a hard-to-create nostalgic factor, with some former students turning into residents, many with fond memories of their time walking the buildings’ halls.
“It’s kind of a full circle tie-in,” said Curtis, who added that sometimes his firm keeps remnants of the building, like lockers. “That was their life as a 15 year old or a 17 year old, and now it’s their life as a 77 year old.”
Schools, of course, are not the only property type ripe for conversion, as the country faces a steep housing shortage. Developers in particular have been eyeing offices, many of which had become vacant during the pandemic, for redevelopment projects. Across the country, 11.8 million square feet of office-to-multifamily redevelopments were built or under construction last year, a record, according to Yardi.
Questions have arisen lately about the viability of such conversions, after developers David Werner and MetroLoft’s conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters in Midtown, where the builders are adding 15 stories on top of the existing structure, was at risk of collapse earlier this month.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the structural issues, but the scare has led some in the industry to question whether vertical enlargements of aging buildings are worth it for conversions — even if they are necessary for deals to make sense on paper.
School buildings post several benefits that may make them apt fits for residential properties, experts said. Chief among them is location: schools are often in prime areas for prospective residents, said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix.
“What was good for the kids is also good for the residents,” he said. “The demographics or the metrics that fit how it was developed as a school, fit with new residents.”
Many schools also have been fairly well maintained, as they often are put to other uses after the last bell rang, said Curtis, an architect by trade. Classrooms also tend to turn into decent-sized apartments, and schools often have high ceilings, a lot of light and significant parking space.
Hotels are another property type that developers try to convert into housing, but those conversions are not as simple as they appear, Curtis said.
“Think of the dimension between a corridor wall of a hotel and the exterior window wall,” he said. “It results in a very narrow unit.”
Still, there are drawbacks to redeveloping schools, and not every building — or community — is a fit. Some residents raise typical concerns about traffic and density, or municipalities are simply a struggle to work with, Curtis said. Some school properties are too small, like elementary schools, and others have too much community space — think a mega-sized auditorium — which raises questions about potential uses.
Some are simply too old and cannot be saved. For instance, there were numerous attempts to redevelop the Silver Creek High School in Chautauqua County, New York, a property that had sat vacant for more than 45 years. But the plans were stymied by its extensive remediation efforts that led to its eventual demolition to make way for a new apartment complex.
Other developers have, simply, not fulfilled their promises. In Newark, New Jersey, the city offloaded an unused school along Maple Avenue to a developer with the intent that the property be converted into housing. The developer sold it to a charter school. A years-long lawsuit to void the sale ensued, and in June an appeals court said the charter school can continue to occupy the space.
Crucial to making school conversions pencil out are federal and state tax incentives in an increasingly costly construction landscape, Curtis and Ressler said. For instance, the federal Historic Tax Credit is geared for certain rehabilitation expenditures, and many schools qualify, especially if they were built before World War II. These credits can be coupled with local incentives, improving the economics for builders.
But, like all government programs, they are subject to the whims of politicians. For instance, in Ohio, a state law passed in 2022 prevents developers from pairing low-income housing tax credits with historic tax credits for rehabilitation, which affected how developers considered school projects, Ressler said. State governments are also in the process of mapping out new Opportunity Zones, which are areas that are targeted for economic development and tax incentives and which may shift how developers look at redevelopment projects.
“Politicians want to get elected. Midterms are coming up. We’re going to see what these cities and counties do,” said Ressler. “Because the affordability issue isn’t going to go away.”