$7.2M Banglatown school redevelopment project to be ‘model for adaptive reuse,' developer says

A historic school built in the 1920s to serve the city’s growing Polish population will find new life as affordable housing in Detroit’s Banglatown neighborhood.

Developers Ethos Development Partners and Cinnaire Solutions have broken ground on the $7.2 million renovation of the former Transfiguration School at 13300 Syracuse in the Banglatown neighborhood, one of Mayor Mike Duggan’s Strategic Neighborhood Fund areas. Slated for completion in 2022, the Transfiguration Place Apartments will feature 19 units of affordable housing, all of which will be available at 60% of area median income (AMI). Seventeen of the units will be one-bedroom, with the other two being two-bedrooms. 

“The Transfiguration Place Apartments will provide much-needed affordable housing in Banglatown and offer residents quality apartments with access to a number of amenities,” said Donald Rencher, director of the Housing & Revitalization Department, in a release. “Our department is committed to ensuring that development in our city creates equity and opportunity and that our city’s neighborhoods are welcoming, inclusive places for all.”

The City of Detroit issued a Request for Proposal for the site on the behalf of the Archdiocese of Detroit as part of a partnership aimed at revitalizing historic but vacant Detroit buildings. Area residents were part of the RFP selection, and community meetings were held with the goal of incorporating feedback into the design.

“This project is about the community coming together to find solutions to both our need for affordable housing and the question on what to do with the many historic but unused buildings that dot our city,” Duggan said. “I’d like to thank and congratulate the team behind the renovation of Transfiguration School for not only their commitment to creating affordable housing but also for helping to continue the revitalization of our neighborhoods by reactivating this beautiful building that had been such an important part of Banglatown’s past.”

The school is the oldest surviving piece of a six-building complex that was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. As part of the renovation, historic details will be preserved.

The project “will be a model for adaptive reuse,” Joseph Heaphy, president of Ethos, said.

“Ethos and Cinnaire Solutions are proud to partner with the City of Detroit, the Archdiocese, the Detroit Housing Commission and MSHDA to bring new life to the historic Transfiguration Catholic School as affordable housing for the community,” Heaphy said. “Once completed, Transfiguration Place will be a model for adaptive reuse of vacant schools to turn them into assets for communities throughout the city.”

Built in 1926 to serve Detroit’s growing Polish population, the building was also the congregation’s church until 1950. The parish school closed in 2005, but the building was leased to a charter school until about 2014. Since then, it has sat largely unused.

The affordable rents are supported by Michigan State Housing Development Authority Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, HOME Investment Partnership and Community Development Block Grant funding administered by the City of Detroit, and project-based vouchers through the Detroit Housing Commission. The vouchers will enable residents of extremely low-incomes (0-50% AMI) to live at Transfiguration Place.

The Housing & Revitalization Department is backing the development through $1.4 million in HOME funding and $500,000 in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Other financial assistance is through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program.