Here's the story from Wisconsin Public Radio, out of Mayville, population 5154. The headline is: "Vacant school building offers solution to a rural town's housing shortage." Here's an excerpt:
For two decades, the former high school in downtown Mayville in Dodge County has sat vacant.
Now, this community of 5,000 people, located an hour drive northwest of Milwaukee, hopes to use the old red brick school building to help solve a common problem in rural Wisconsin — a shortage of housing.
This week, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation announced it's awarded the city $250,000 to turn the building into a 20-unit complex called the Albrecht School Apartments.
"Mayville is an example of one of Wisconsin's amazing communities that is rebuilding and reinvesting in their downtown, and helping local businesses get started," WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes said. "And so we wanted to provide support in one of the critical areas of need that we're seeing all around the state, which is new housing. "
According to a 2019 study by the Wisconsin Realtors Association, the state hasn’t been building enough homes to keep up with population growth. The resulting shortage makes it harder for businesses to recruit and retain employees, because workers struggle to find affordable, decent housing near their workplace. One way to help solve the problem, the study notes, is building more multifamily housing, like apartments.
Building new housing, though, can be difficult for rural areas, Hughes said, because many developers are hesitant to invest in those parts of the state.
"If you build in an urban community, you have a guaranteed market. You have the opportunity to do many more units at once, and you know you're gonna fill them," she said. "If you are investing in a rural area, you have the same costs as you have in the urban area, but you might not be able to recoup as much in rent or in sales price. "
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