Affordable housing, arts center suggested for Natick's vacant Eliot School

NATICK — Would you live in the former Eliot School in South Natick? How about taking some dance classes there?

As the town debates future uses for the now-vacant school building, affordable housing and an arts center were some of the suggestions made during a community outreach meeting Wednesday night.

Located at 5 Auburn St., the town-owned property was built in the 1920s and was once home to the public Eliot School until around 1981, according to the town’s website. Later, the private Eliot Montessori School — now the Riverbend School — leased the building from the town before moving into its own space in mid-2020.

What's the process?

Last fall, the Natick Select Board received Town Meeting permission to sell the property, a process that involves requests for proposals. The 5 Auburn Street RFP Committee, which hosted Wednesday’s meeting, is charged with gathering input on and examining potential land uses for the formation of a request for proposals.

While the three-story building offers parking, green space, a playground and proximity to the Charles River, it’s in need of some renovations.

“The current shape of the building is that it is not in very good shape,” said Andy Meyer, 5 Auburn Street RFP Committee chair. “It is not ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. If there was a decision to keep it and rehab it, it would really be a major overhaul because so much would have to go into it that it would trigger ADA.”

It's not the first time Natick has considered the former school's fate: Discussions about selling or leasing the property long term previously came up in 2007 and 2008.

From 2008: Natick TM approves Eliot School sale or lease

The RFP committee has many factors to consider in making its recommendations to the Select Board; preferences included in the request could impact interest from prospective buyers, Meyer noted.

“It doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand that if you offer to sell a piece of property and you have several restrictions in it — including what the buyer can do with it or how much of the parcel the buyer can buy or any other restrictions you can think of — that obviously reduces the value of the property,” he said.

A home for those who have been priced out

The property has potential as an affordable housing site, according to Randy Johnson, who attended Wednesday's meeting.

Johnson, who chairs the town’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board, said the board has done a preliminary examination of the property and is interested in it.

“​​We see great benefit to the town in pursuing a path like this and it becomes a very feasible project,” Johnson said.

Affordable housing came up again and again in online discussion about the site, and the suggestion is one the committee will include in its work, Meyer said.

Robin Wood, who lives nearby, said she’d like to see the school developed into affordable housing for seniors, perhaps with units priced below $500,000. In 2021, Natick’s median single-family home price reached $735,000, with prices in certain neighborhoods even higher.

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“I would like to speak very much in favor of having this property developed for seniors who have lived for many, many years in this community and who are being priced out of the community,” Wood said.

Expanding community access to the arts

Antonio Viva, however, said he sees the Eliot School property as a prime opportunity for community arts programming — not just for Natick, but for MetroWest at large.

Viva, who is head of school at Natick’s Walnut Hill School for the Arts, suggested using the building to house Walnut Hill’s extended community programming, which serves aspiring artists both young and old.

“Walnut Hill wants to think about how it can provide exciting, accessible, affordable creative arts experiences for the broader community,” Viva said. “We just think the building has interesting potential.”

He added: “Our hope would be to think about preserving the space as it is, bringing the building back to its historic grandeur, and even potentially considering moving adjacent property as a way of expanding access to the greater community as a rich center for creativity and arts.”

'A real jewel for Natick'

Several attendees spoke in favor of maintaining the school’s facade, regardless of the building’s future use.

Jennifer Dimmick, an alumna of the original Eliot School and a South Natick resident, is among those in favor of preserving the facade.

“It is a historic, very elegant building and in keeping with the character of South Natick, and I would feel that it would be a tragic waste of that jewel to tear it down,” she said.

“It's a really unique building,” Marco Kaltofen added. “It's a real jewel for Natick, not just in South Natick, so uses that preserve the look of this building, obviously, are going to be treated a lot more favorably.”

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Natick's Eliot School: Affordable housing, arts center among pitches