Apartment plans clear funding hurdle

A company has secured tax credits to convert Iola’s former Jefferson and McKinley elementary school properties into apartment complexes. The project, pegged at $20 million, will bring 49 units into the city.

The halls of McKinley and Jefferson elementary schools have been quiet for years. No clatter of lunch trays, no shuffle of little feet, no morning announcements crackling through the intercom. But if all goes according to plan, the sounds of life will return in a new form: families unlocking apartment doors and neighbors chatting on stairwells.

It’s the culmination of more than four years of effort. And, as Thrive Allen County CEO Lisse Regehr told the USD 257 school board Monday night, the dream is within reach.

After two attempts to secure funding for the project failed, the community learned the “Iola Schools Redevelopment” plan had been awarded state and federal tax credits through the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation to start the wheels in motion.

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