By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Scarborough resident and Housing Initiatives of New England President Cynthia Taylor can sympathize with any student who has fantasized about turning their classroom into something other than a place for learning. Taylor has taken the lead on the Bessey Commons project, transforming an 81-year-old building to a housing development for seniors over the age of 55 that gives Scarborough residents preference. 

“This isn’t our place,” Taylor said. “It belongs to Scarborough.”

The building, originally built as a school in 1927, was named after Principal Elwood G. Bessey, Scarborough Historical Society spokesperson Becky Delaware said. The Bessey building later housed middle school and elementary students, she said. 

“It’s been a school building for a long time,” Delaware said. 

The building remained town property long after classes stopped there and was used as school administrative offices and eventually became the home of Ruth’s Recyclables before the town began to look at other options for the building and the land in 2005, Taylor said. 

“[The building] was in tough shape,” she said. “It had sort of been given up on.”

Taylor – who attended the sixth grade at the building, said she was originally approached about future options for the Bessey School property in 2005 by a developer who intended to convert the space to a gymnasium. 

“We looked at putting in an Olympic sized pool,” Taylor said. “It just wasn’t the right time.”

After scrapping plans for the gym, Taylor said the town council gave her the lead on converting the building into senior housing. Town Planner Dan Bacon said the town agreed to offer Housing Initiatives of New England a 100-year lease on the property and include future options for a second phase of development behind the current building. 

“It’s really neat to do something with a building that’s important to people in the town,” Taylor said of the $10 million renovation project. 

One of the most labor-intensive parts of the project included a $100,000 “re-pointing” or washing and re-grouting the brick exterior of the original Bessey School building, Taylor said. 

“It was a lot of work, but we didn’t sand blast,” she said. “Environmentalists hate it when you sand blast.”

The most expensive upgrade to the old structure included insulating the roof and walls with a spray-on foam insulation – a $400,000 addition to cost of renovating the building, Taylor said. She said combined with new fire-proof sheetrock walls and insulated windows – all designed to resemble the original look of the school building – the new structure should be much more energy efficient.

“We wanted to keep everything as old fashioned as possible but had to find an energy efficiency level we could live with,” Taylor said.

To ensure the interior of the building resemble a school, all of the original doorframes have been left in, and Taylor said while new fireproof doors will be installed for access to the rooms, the old classroom doors will still hang on their hinges – the school trophy case has also been left in its original spot. 

“It will still look like a school,” she said.

The first floor of the original Bessey School has been converted into 14 single-bedroom apartments; the girls’ locker room has already become a mail room, the principal’s office is currently being used as a “paint station” and part of the gymnasium is now the only two-bedroom unit in the entire development, Taylor said. 

“It would be perfect for two siblings who want to stay close together but still be able to survive on their own,” she said. 

The whole third floor of the old building, once a chemistry lab that burst into flames causing some damage to the ceiling, will be reserved for community activities; a quilting club has already claimed the old lab, Taylor said. 

“We’re trying to bring some service programs to the place too,” she said.

In addition to the 14 units, the development includes 40 modern single-bedroom units in the building connected to the old Bessey School building. Taylor said in constructing the new building they tried to locate bricks that looked similar to those in the original school and consulted with architects on how to have one compliment the other. 

“They’re supposed to look like two separate buildings, but we tried to connect them together in a unique way,” she said. 

For more information on the Bessey Commons senior housing project – scheduled to open next month – visit their Web site www.besseycommons.com or call 885-8801.