At a reader’s suggestion, comes today’s post, taking a look at the St. Genevieve School located at 641 Irvine, which was converted into lofts around 2000.
The school was designed in 1929, by the local architectural firm of Pennington & Boyde, who were responsible for many school buildings and churches in Windsor and Essex county in the 1920’s.
The rendering above appeared in the Border Cities Star, July 12, 1929:
This project was one of two conversions of old schools (along with Edith Cavell in Riverside) that made me briefly think that Windsor was turning a corner with attitude towards adaptive reuse.
Sadly since that time, reuse projects have been few and far between, and demolition remains the preferred option.
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I was one of the last remaining graduating classes from that school. Interesting to note that the school's gym was in the basement.
Since it was so small it was doomed to be closed with an ever tightening school budget. When I was there it has about 92-98 students.
Any idea of how many units are in the bldg. Also what did they do with the large schoolyard surronding the bldg.??? Is it owned by the loft owners ???
Mike, there was no large schoolyard. There was parking for teachers on the "girls side" entrance (west side). On the boys side it was an asphalt playground. Across the street to the east was a park we were allowed to play in. It is still there.
I believe there are 12 units as Valente Development pu tin false floors slightly above the gym floor to raise up the lower level condos.
Beliive me, these are very nice condos and a tip of the hat goes out to this company for having such vision. Now if only the city itself would get on board and people realized that the suburbs are not as cracked up as they appear, we might actually get somewhere.
I lived in this neighbourhood for a few years and really liked it there. Very nice quiet residential pocket with well-kept properties and relatively low through traffic thanks to the streets configuration (ie. they all dead end at the ETR tracks). The little park is an asset too. They recently replaced the rickety old fence that was there and the park is well maintained overall. The variety store on Howard was well-stocked and presumably still is, so a bag of milk or loaf of bread was always a five minute walk away. The school re-use really helped keep the neighbourhood on its feet.
I remember as a kid, this was probably 1986-87ish, the exterior bell to that school started to ring one saturday afternoon and didnt stop until sunday morning. Perhaps a malfunction with the timer or something, I think it was during the winter break... It was so loud in that quiet neighbourhood, and what a relief when it was finally turned off! Irvine was a nice street back then, and it still is. Went to Olivet Baptist when it was in that neighbourhood as well, and got stung by my first yellowjacket one sunday afternoon outside of that church...
I was the skinny little good looking girl - remember me:) I married Danny Iannicello in 1989 and still happily married!
wow did`t know they turned this nice old building into lofts. i remember knowing to old freinds that jammed in a band with me that went to this school. there names are chris and frank, hey guys its domenic remember hanging out around the school. nice building and nice neibourhood.
Would anyone know where I might get information on the school and student body, possibly photos? I believe my mother attended St.Genevieve as a young girl, in the 1930s (born in 1926). I will be visiting Windsor mid-August and would love the opportunity to do some research.
Thanks,
Susan
Does anyone know if the building is well maintained now? I remember looking at a unit in there after they turned it into a loft and although the unit was very nice there were a few things that caught my attention, I almost tripped going up the stairs as the stair grips weren't even bolted down properly, I'm not sure if small things like these show that there may be bigger problems but I'm curious to know if anyone has any other insights. Its a charming community though and a very unique building, I'm sure its sentimental to a lot of people and glad they didn't demolish it