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De Pere’s Irwin School becoming condos/town homes

By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent

DE PERE – A neighborhood in De Pere will soon get some some upscale housing, and change-related upheaval for neighbors in the North Michigan Street/North Superior Street Historic District should be kept to a minimum.

On April 3, the De Pere Common Council OK’d developers’ final plans for turning the Historic Irwin School, 428 N. Superior St., into condominiums and town homes.

“I’m happy,” said neighbor Dan Vandenberg, who lives at 448 Huron St. “I’m glad they’re saving the historic building and repurposing it, instead of razing it, as was suggested at one point.”

The brick Irwin School was built in 1924, in the Collegiate Gothic style, on a 1.4-acre lot and is listed on both the state and national historic registers.

In 1988, it was rezoned to mixed-use/business in order to convert the building into office space.

For the last 10 years, it sat vacant.

Last summer, the De Pere Common Council agreed to rezone it again, this time to multifamily/residential, for the Irwin Lofts project.

Irwin School
The Irwin School townhomes are designed as a two-story rear-load product. The building fronts will face the street while the attached garages are accessed via a shared alley. Submitted Image

Updated plans call for renovating the existing school building into eight condominiums and creating 12 new town home residences on the school grounds.

Two buildings of six units each will house the dozen town homes.

Those viewing Irwin School from North Superior Street won’t immediately notice an alteration to its footprint.

Its outside won’t dramatically change, but the inside will become eight large condos, and first-floor garages will be added onto the back.

The garages are designed in such a way to integrate into the architecture with materials and colors, according to the plan.

The lot, bounded by North Superior facing northwest, Franklin Street to the northeast, North Huron Street to the southeast, and William Street due south, will be reclassified as two lots via certified survey map, with the school on one plot and two six-unit town home buildings on the second.

The two town home buildings will be parallel to each other, aligned with Franklin Street, with a pedestrian walkway between them.

The units won’t be puny, either – each of the eight condos and 12 town homes will offer more than 3,000 square feet of living space.

The landscape plan preserves mature trees and keeps the greenspace in front of Irwin School intact.

Flowering crab apples, minuet weigela bushes, annabelle hydrangeas, daylilies, sedum and patriot hostas will adorn the grounds.

Kimberly Flom, director of planning and economic development for the city of De Pere, said more than the required 30 percent of the site will be retained as open greenspace.

“The project as designed provides 42.2 percent open space,” she said.

From the city’s perspective, the Irwin Lofts project fits with De Pere’s future vision because it preserves a historic building while not only adding housing near the downtown area but providing diversity in housing as well, according to the planning department.

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