Newport News' Southeast Community's former hardware store and school see new life

Mesic Hardware and George Washington School will become apartment buildings

The former Mesic Hardware store is being converted to apartments, part of the 50-unit Jefferson Brookville complex in Newport News.

On a recent Tuesday, the store building, its name still visible in paint above the front door and former display windows, bristled with activity. Workers chiseled into the brick back wall, opening spaces for windows. Other workers focused on the building's first floor, gutted to the outer walls and interior frame.

Construction superintendent Martin Cooke, of North Carolina-based Rehab Builders, Inc., said the crew would preserve and restore as many of the building's original elements as possible, including its stamped tin ceiling, dark wood balustrade, the rows of windows on the second floor and the store's distinctive marquee. The building will hold five apartments and have a community room on the first floor. The new building next door will have 25 units and is "geared for families," Cooke said.

About two blocks away on 29th Avenue, crews also were busy at the former George Washington School, a two-story square brick structure that once housed students in grades 4-6. The building's large classrooms will become eight one-bedroom apartments. Cooke said construction workers are preserving the building's sweeping staircases, arched windows and transoms over the classroom doors.

Cooke pointed out the original slate chalkboards on the interior walls, now covered with layers of peeling paint, which will be covered with Sheetrock. He marveled that they had survived the building's previous uses. One even had lessons still scrawled on it, he said. One bare upstairs room with windows looking out on tree tops held a dusty, out-of-tune upright piano, a remnant from the prior owner, a church.

NNRHA executive director Karen Wilds said she had eyed the old school for years, hoping to buy it and turn it into housing. When the opportunity came, it became part of the Jefferson Brookville plan.

The apartment project fits into a larger effort to revitalize the area, she noted. Other projects include the proposed Brooks Crossing development about three blocks north on Jefferson Avenue, new public art, Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza and streetscape improvements that buried overhead utility lines and installed lamp posts and traffic signal standards.

Officials are also considering what to do on the site of the former Harbor Homes and Dickerson Court housing developments, both razed in recent years. Wilds and Economic Development Authority Executive Director Florence Kingston said they hope that 37-acre site will house businesses that bring jobs to the community.

Wilds said Jefferson Brookville will bring affordable "work force" housing to Jefferson Avenue corridor. She called the development an example of "adaptive reuse," giving old buildings with architectural or historic significance new life. The development includes units for older citizens and people with disabilities in two of the buildings.

"There is something magical about 50 units," she said of the mix across the three buildings.

Cooke said construction on the third building in the project, which will house 12 apartments in the 2700 block of Jefferson Avenue, has not yet begun. Wilds said the buildings should be complete in about 14 months. Cooke is enthusiastic about the construction and conversion work.

"I think it's going to be really attractive," he said. "You should see it in May or June."