FREMONT, MI - Talk about deja vu.

The former high school building in the middle of Newaygo County's Fremont dates back to 1926.

Re-fitted as a 38-apartment building for seniors called The Gateway, the build manager said several occupants are now sleeping where they once suffered pencils, books and teachers' dirty looks.

The school, located at Main Street, was located at a gateway for traffic into the city. The finished project there is receiving state and national attention as a work of historic preservation.

Inside, the building has been extensively re-done with new surfaces, but many of the old trappings remain - wide scholastic hallways and high classroom ceilings.

One of the hallways still has lockers lining one wall - residents have been quick to claim them with padlocks. The building's library has a weathered, wood-panel wall and panes of glass facing the hallway.

"I'm told by some of my residents that used to be the principal's office," said Manager Rhonda Thompson. One of the residents who used to attend the school has put an antique desk out in the hallway for decoration.

Thompson said the owner of the building, Farmington Hills-based HRS Communities, preserved as much as they could.

"They had to build the apartment to fit the building, not the other way around," Thompson said.

Where the building couldn't be preserved in its original state, they tried to restore it in a time-appropriate way, for instance, ordering hardwood, full-scale replacement windows. Another instance is the school courtyard, where developers tore off a modern roof and built a new brick facade on three sides.

"We were able to save some custom tile work and fountains," said HRS Communities Senior Vice President Shannon Morgan.

Thoroughly modernized systems in the building include a geothermal well, which lowers the cost of heating and cooling, she said. Development costs for the project totaled about $13 million. Chemical Bank provided construction financing for the renovation. The County of Newaygo provided a brownfield grant, and a Michigan Housing and Community Development Fund Grant, and a 10 percent payment in lieu of taxes from the city of Fremont.

"It really was a true public-private endeavor," Morgan said. "It was a great partnership."

The restoration served two goals, Morgan said: To preserve a landmark, but also to provide affordable housing. Tenants qualifying under MSHDA guidelines pay as low as $234 a month for a studio apartment, or $665 for a 2-bedroom apartment. Market-rate apartments are $538-$923 a month.

She said the project has met both of those goals: There's a wait list of roughly 100 tenants waiting to get into the place, and the project has received state and national recognition for historic preservation.

The site is a recipient of the 2016 Governor's Award for Historic Preservation, and recently was given honorable mention in the Rural category with the National Charles L. Edson Tax Credit Excellence Award.

The back of the former school hasn't gone to waste, either. The city has created a community center with a pool, gym, cardio and weight rooms, and multi-purpose room for a variety of exercise and social programs - all of which are run by the Fremont Recreational Authority.

For $10 a month, residents of The Gateway can access the community center, where open swims and pickle ball tournaments are popular.

Resident Norma Krise lives in a former classroom - somebody told her it's a former math classroom - but she said her apartment is safe, comfortable, and homey.

"It is one of the nicer ones I've seen," Krise said. "It's a nice little getaway."

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Stephen Kloosterman is a reporter for MLive. Email him at sklooste@mlive.com or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+

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