A 129-Year-Old West Englewood Schoolhouse Is Becoming 50 Homes — And It Just Made Headlines
By Socialhood News · West Englewood ·
A shuttered West Englewood school that has stood for more than a century is finally getting a second life. The former Charles Warrington Earle Elementary School at 6121 S. Hermitage Avenue — a 129-year-old building listed on the National Register of Historic Places — is being converted into 50 affordable apartments, and the project drew fresh attention this week when the Chicago Sun-Times spotlighted it on August 26, 2026.
The redevelopment is being carried out by Gorman & Company, a Wisconsin-based affordable housing developer with a track record of historic adaptive reuse projects across the Midwest. The conversion broke ground in October 2024, and the Sun-Times coverage this past week marks a milestone moment as the project moves closer to completion and families begin to get their first look at what will soon be available homes inside one of the neighborhood's most recognizable old buildings.
The Earle School building itself is a piece of West Englewood's deep institutional history. At 129 years old, its age alone speaks to how much the neighborhood has lived through — from its early-20th-century boom years to the disinvestment decades that followed. Its placement on the National Register of Historic Places means the building's most significant architectural features must be carefully preserved through the renovation, a requirement that typically shapes everything from window placement to facade materials. For residents who grew up in the neighborhood, or whose parents and grandparents attended school there, seeing the building reborn as housing rather than torn down carries real emotional weight.
Gorman's work on the Earle site is part of a broader pattern of adaptive reuse picking up steam across Englewood and West Englewood. The company also has a pending redevelopment proposal for the former Bontemps Elementary School at 1241 W. 58th St. in West Englewood, which is currently awaiting city approvals. If both projects move forward, Gorman would be responsible for returning two shuttered CPS buildings on the Southwest Side to productive neighborhood use — a meaningful contribution to a community that has watched too many anchor institutions go dark.
The 50-unit project at the Earle building slots into a corridor of accelerating investment along West Englewood's residential streets. It joins the 44-unit affordable development that broke ground at 6301 S. Western Avenue in April 2026 and the transit-oriented mixed-use proposal selected for parcels flanking the Green Line's Ashland/63rd Street stop. Taken together, these projects suggest that the wave of investment is not limited to commercial corridors alone — it is reaching into the fabric of residential West Englewood block by block.
For prospective renters, details on leasing availability and income qualifications for the Earle School apartments have not yet been publicly announced, but the project is expected to serve residents at affordable income levels consistent with Gorman's other Chicago-area work. Neighbors interested in tracking the project's progress — or in getting ahead of the leasing process when units come online — can monitor updates through the Chicago Department of Housing at chicago.gov/housing and watch for announcements via the Resident Association of Greater Englewood at ragenglewood.org. With 50 units of quality affordable housing about to emerge from a building that could easily have been demolished, West Englewood's bet on preservation over vacancy is one worth following closely.
Sources:
1. https://chicago.suntimes.com/real-estate/2026/08/26/west-englewood-shuttered-charles-warrington-earle-school-affordable-housing
2. https://chicago.urbanize.city/neighborhood/englewood