The Oberlin Community Land Trust plans to convert the property containing Eastwood Elementary School into a space for residential housing. Eastwood Elementary has remained unused since Oberlin Elementary School opened its doors in 2021.
The Eastwood property currently belongs to the Oberlin City Schools Board of Education, but Oberlin City Schools plans to have the property sold to the Oberlin CLT and is working with the Lorain County Land Bank to facilitate such a sale.
“The land trust will own it, and they’ll be able to rent out the facility until they have enough funding for housing to go there,” said David Hall, superintendent for Oberlin City Schools.
Hall reported that the land trust was considering various options regarding who the property would be rented to and that Oberlin College was one possibility. According to Hall, it will likely be months before the land trust obtains the property and begins renting it and years before this generates sufficient funding to convert the property to housing.
As such, details about the type of housing and the number of units are still unknown. Whether the elementary school building will eventually be demolished and replaced with new structures or simply renovated is also undetermined.
“The infrastructure for the building is in better shape than [the Oberlin CLT] thought,” Hall said. “So they would have to have a contractor come in and look, see what they can do with it.”
Farah Emeka, OC ’97, president of the Oberlin Schools Board of Education, said that the property may be large enough to build new housing units while keeping the school building intact.
Over the past several years, the Board of Education has considered several options regarding what it could do with the vacant property. The Board considered exchanging the property with the College or working with Liberty Development Company to convert the property for residential use, but both of these efforts fell through.
Emeka noted that input from community members helped form current plans.
“From talking to people throughout the City of Oberlin, throughout the school district’s jurisdiction, the sentiment is that they would like for it to be residential housing,” she said.
Efforts to work with Liberty Development Company failed in part because Liberty believed the property should first be used for office or storage space before being converted to residential use, contrary to the wishes of many in Oberlin.
Emeka noted that the future of the Eastwood property is still fluid and that the Board of Education remains open to input from community members. She encouraged community members to watch school board meetings and to attend and ask questions, adding that the Board was happy to keep them informed.
