Contractors at the historic Mill Street School removed layers of plywood, vinyl and carpet to reveal the building’s original wood floors from 1921.
“If you just had vinyl in here or carpet or whatever, you would lose a lot of that original character that makes this place so special,” said Jenna Fribley, an architect at Campfire Collaborative in Springfield, the firm leading the design of the project. “And that’s one of the things that I think is going to be appealing to people who want to rent this building.”
Contractors are also working with Willamette Window Restoration to repair the building’s 127 original double-hung wood windows and reinstalling them with the original weights.
The work is part of a renovation that will turn former classrooms into 40 market-rate apartments — an ADA unit, two two-bedroom apartments, 19 one-bedroom and 18 studios, according to plans…