Old Mary B. Sharpe elementary is latest historic school to transform into apartments

Lauren (Wilkes) Hill remembers the smell of applesauce that would waft onto the playground at Mary B. Sharpe Elementary School from a nearby factory.

For her grandmother Judy (Wagner) Etter, Heinz ketchup evokes memories from her days attending the former Chambersburg school.

They were among five generations of their family to attend the school, which has stood at 850 Broad St. for 116 years. Hill went there for kindergarten through fifth grade in the late 1990s and 2000, about 50 years after Etter attended Sharpe when it was a K-8 school.

"I love to see it repurposed and not torn down because we have so many memories here for us," Hill said recently while in one of the school's classrooms. "I mean, five generations of our family. Truly, it being declared historic is immense for us because it's part of our history."

Newly named to the National Register of Historic Places, Mary B. Sharpe Elementary will live on as 13-unit apartment building that maintains the historical integrity of the property.

Expected to cost about $3 million, the project is being led by local developer Vern McKissick. He and former Sharpe student Aaron Carmack, now of Atlanta, Ga., won the property at auction in 2022 for $600,000.

Sharpe alumni and other community members were at the old school on July 19 for an official groundbreaking ceremony.

What will the Mary B. Sharpe apartment renovation look like?

Used for various purposes for a decade after Chambersburg Area School District closed it in 2008, the school has been empty for six years. Work is underway to make the building shine again.

Scaffolding needed to rebuild a chimney in the same design as the original climbed the front of the building ahead of the groundbreaking. Workers have made progress to match the old brick and mortar. At the back of the school, which is an addition built in 1924, doors open onto 5,000 square feet of new space created with the removal of dirt and a stairwell.

Now 20,000 square feet, the building will house three floors of apartments:

• the ground floor will have a one-bedroom unit and a two-bedroom unit that comply with the American with Disabilities Act and another two-bedroom unit;
• there will be two studios, three one-bedrooms and one two-bedroom on the first floor;
• and the second floor will have one regular studio and two studios with lofts.

Some units will also have dens, and two of those on the first floor will incorporate the ground floor to be multi-level.

The complex will largely maintain the current layout of the school and incorporate features such as sections of blackboards.

The renovated Mary B. Sharpe building will introduce ADA-compliant housing to Chambersburg, McKissick said.

"It's a request in town that just doesn’t exist. Were glad were able to figure that out," he said.

The outcome of the project will be similar to the Rose Rent Lofts on Third Street.

McKissick led the years-long endeavor to redevelop the old Central Junior High at Queen and Third streets into the Rose Rent Lofts. Additions stitched together over decades were demolished to uncover the 1909 building that was once the original Chambersburg High School. The structure was renovated into 31 market-rate apartments of various sizes and designs. Parts of the old school — everything from chalkboards to the stage of the former music room — are incorporated throughout.

"Vern's not a stranger to our community here," said Chambersburg Borough Council President Allen Coffman, who represents the neighborhood where Mary B. Sharpe is located. "I've watched his work. I've watched how meticulous he is and how historic he tries to be. So, you don’t have to worry about this looking like some modern building; it's gonna look like it looked when it was built."

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Reminiscing about Mary B. Sharpe's glory days

Coffman had two children attend Mary B. Sharpe and led the PTA there for two years.

Speaking at the groundbreaking, he said that as young families continually move in to the borough's First Ward, he views the Mary B. Sharpe experience as something they missed.

“It didn’t have a gym, it didn’t have a cafeteria, but it just didn’t matter. Because at the end of the year they were always No. 1 or No. 2 in scholastic performance, and that’s what schools all about. I just think that the building's just served us wonderful," he said.

Sharpe Elementary was perhaps the most diverse elementary school in Chambersburg, Coffman said.

"One of the other things is I remember throughout the years thinking about Sharpe, talking about diversity of people and income, and before it was a woke item to talk about, Sharpe was the picture in Chambersburg for diversity," he said. "We had a lot of difference in people's incomes, a lot of different people went here."

Marge Schollaert was the PTA president at Sharpe for seven years when her two children attended around the time of the school's 75th anniversary.

"It's something Chambersburg needs," she said of the renovation project. "I think they did a fantastic job at Central and I just am really thrilled to see them doing it here."

Demolition could have been Mary B. Sharpe school's fate

Upon his partner taking ownership of the school, McKissick quickly got to work to get the building on the National Register of Historic Places — an effort that had been started but not completed before the school closed in 2008.

The designation prevents the building from being demolished and allowed McKissick to obtain tax credits to offset the cost of the project.

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McKissick credited the late Joan Bowen, a school district historian, for making him aware of the opportunity at the school.

"As recently as three weeks before this building went to auction, we were able to make contact with her and she reassured me why I needed to chase this project and save the school," he said. "I commend her because she put it in our sights and other folks who we were able to then find who could share the vision with us."

But he and Carmack still could have lost the auction.

"The story I like to tell of what really committed me was the week before it was to come to auction, I was on my hands and knees to crawl into the basement through a tiny access and there was a group of folks out of Philadelphia who were upstairs talking to their demolition folks getting the price on full clearance and such. So that kind of committed us, to maybe we need to get this baby," McKissick said.

Amber South can be reached at asouth@publicopinionnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Chambersburg Public Opinion: Old Mary B. Sharpe elementary is latest historic school to transform into apartments