What used to be classrooms where students first started learning 147 years ago will now be someone's kitchen or bathroom.
The historic Dickson Public School building on St. Andrews Street is close to being renovated and transformed into luxury lofts with tenants moving in after a few finishing touches are done being installed.
"It might look like there is a lot to do still, but this is the easy part now, all the hard stuff is over with," said the owner of the school, Mark McInnis.
The school was built back in 1877 and remains one of the oldest schools still standing in Cambridge; with this comes a heritage designation and strict rules McInnis needed to follow.
At first, he proposed to build a mixed-use office space building with residential units at the back, but plans quickly changed in 2019 as finding tenants for the offices and heritage regulations were holding up the construction.
"Honestly I think it was a blessing that we changed course and went just residential," said McInnis. "Office spaces just aren't being used like they used to be so I think we dodge a bit of a bullet on that one."
The road for McInnis and his team has been a long one as they approach eight years of trying to complete the development dealing with a global pandemic, supply shortages and approvals at the city.
The building now almost finished, will host a total of eight units, four on each floor with a mix of one and two-bedroom suites.
The ceilings from the old schoolhouse are massive, stretching 12 feet high and accompanied by large windows that allow natural light to fill the space.
"We wanted to incorporate as much from the school as we could, because it adds so much and keeps it true to the character of the building," said McInnis.
The units repurposed some of the old ceiling tiles for decorations over a newly installed ceiling and they also kept the floors that were salvageable in some of the units.
As much as he loves the inside of the building, the exterior is something that sells the building for McInnis.
"When I would drive by, I would notice the townhomes across the street, but it wasn't until I was thinking about buying this property did I started to notice it," he said. "Now when you drive by, it just stands out as a prominent piece on the top of the hill."
Two large floodlights have been installed out front to illuminate the exterior of the building at night and modern landscaping ties the whole thing together during the day.
Everything has been purposeful for the team to stay true to the will of the building while adding to the revitalization of the neighbourhood.
"Just down the road is the Gaslight District, a major placemaking part of the city and I feel like we are adding to that," he said.
Construction is slated to be completed this fall with tenants hopefully moving in shortly after.