ATHOL – Gov. Maura Healey recently announced the awarding of $164 million in One Stop for Growth grants for projects designed to support affordable housing and job opportunities.

Of that, $575,000 went to NewVue Communities of Fitchburg, the organization overseeing the transformation of the former Riverbend and Bigelow schools into 52 units of senior and affordable housing.

On Thursday, Nov. 2, Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus stopped by the Riverbend-Bigelow location after first seeing the site of a potential development on Canal Street and the municipal parking deck on South Street, site of a planned and privately-funded 43-unit affordable housing project.

Augustus complimented local officials for their persistence in going after the funding needed to make repurposing of the former schools a reality.

“You have a really proactive group of leaders here – your town manager, your legislators – who spoke to me about coming out and seeing some of the things that are going on and to see if we can be helpful,” he said. “Part of it is getting people to tell us about the opportunities out here and bringing us out.”

One Stop for Growth functions as a portal for municipalities to apply for 13 state grant programs that fund economic development projects related to planning and zoning, site preparation, building construction, infrastructure, and housing development.

Anne Reitmeyer, director finance and acquisitions for NewVue Communities, provided a brief overview of the Riverbend-Bigelow project for Augustus.

“It’s inter-generational housing,” she said as Augustus, local officials and representatives of NueVue gathered in front of the Riverbend School. “It will be housing for families and housing for seniors. There will be new construction that will be a link between this school and the one behind it – the Bigelow School.”

Augustus was pleased to hear that much of the parking lot surrounding the schools will be torn up and replaced with green space, a community garden and space for kids to play.

“It’s a mix of affordable and workforce housing,” Reitmeyer continued. “There will be some units that will be affordable to most at 60 percent of area median income, and then workforce housing, probably targeted somewhere around 80 percent.”

NewVue Real Estate Project Developer James Linfield told Augustus that Athol has made a good contribution to the project, referring to the use of $400,000 in federal ARPA funds approved by the Selectboard in February 2020. Rep. Jim McGovern also secured $1 million for the project, he said, getting those monies included in a federal spending package approved by Congress last December. The total cost of the schools’ transformation is currently estimated at $30 million.

Augustus said it’s important for him to check out the projects that are proposed, or in the works, and see where state funds are being invested.

“I’m a visual guy,” he told the Athol Daily News. “If I see something and get what it can turn into – I’ve been involved in a lot of school renovations for housing and know how amazing they can be. There’s a lot of nostalgia in old school buildings within a community. Lots of people have connections; they taught there, went to school there. So when you can preserve that piece of history and turn into some kind of modern reuse that’s needed by the community, it’s a win-win.”

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.