See inside a defunct Macy s that underwent a $3.5 million transformation to become a high school in Vermont
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Teens are attending COVID-era school in mall department stores they once shopped in
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- Students at a Vermont high school returned to in-person learning in an unexpected new location.
- High schoolers at Downtown Burlington High School are attending school in a former Macy’s department store.
- Photos from the Associated Press show the students learning and living in the former retail space.
Many of the Downtown Burlington High School students used to do their family shopping at the downtown mall in Burlington, Vermont. Now they do their learning there, too.
The Downtown Burlington High School opened earlier this month in a former Macy’s department store.
The unusual move came six months after school administrators closed the previous school building after finding toxic industrial chemicals in the building and soil during a renovation, according to The Associated Press.
That discovery left Burlington students learning at home, remotely, like millions of other American students this the past year.
As a return to in-person schooling started to seem possible, school officials began to look for a nearby space where the high schoolers could attend in-person.
According to the AP, officials learned the former shopping mall, less than two miles from the former school building, was a possibility for a new school space.
See inside a defunct Macy’s that underwent a $3.5 million transformation to become a high school in Vermont
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- A high school in Burlington, Vermont moved into a defunct Macy’s store.
- The school district spent $3.5 million renovating the department store into classrooms.
- Some abandoned malls across the US are being repurposed for other uses.
High school students in Burlington, Vermont are now attending school in what was once a Macy’s department store in a local mall, Lisa Rathke reported for the Associated Press.
Students at the school spent the previous six months learning remotely after toxic chemicals that can have dangerous health effects, called PCBs, were found in the school building.
The district signed a six-month lease on the former Macy’s location, spending $3.5 million to renovate the 150,000 square foot space so it would be useable as a school, Seven Days Vermont reported.
Macy’s closed the location in 2018, but it’s still set up like a standard department store. Dividers separate the huge space into dozens of classrooms, plus a cafeteria, library, and physical education room.
The escalators are one of the features that make Downtown Burlington High School different from others. Students told the AP that escalators and elevators are “nice features” for students.
Some students and faculty told the AP that the lack of windows can be an issue, and noise travels because the dividing walls don’t reach the ceiling, but the temporary solution is working.
“It’s way better than being stuck at home on your computer all day long,” Senior Lila Iyengar Lehman told the AP.
The cafeteria is in the space that once held Michael Kors products, and signs of the building’s previous life as a mall are still around.
Lunch buffets have replaced display cases.
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