WHATELY — With the East Whately School House renovation project having cleared its final hurdle with the Zoning Board of Appeals, “upscale” one-bedroom apartments are coming to Whately.

Known as the Blue School for its paint job, the 108-year-old building will receive an interior makeover. Robert Obear and his company, Obear Construction, plan to renovate the school at 219 Christian Lane into nine apartments.

The ZBA’s May 22 meeting was relatively brief because it was a continuation of an April meeting in which Obear described the project, which will maintain the external footprint of the historically significant property.

“We’re happy to be a good neighbor,” Obear said. “It’s not our intention to be a burden to anyone.”

With one meeting already held, and with Obear committing to installing landscape screening, maintaining the residential atmosphere of the neighborhood and minimizing light pollution at the May 3 Planning Board meeting, members of the ZBA quickly moved through and approved the zoning criteria for the project.

The approval, however, was briefly held up when an abutter, whose name was not identified on Zoom, requested the board conduct a site visit of the school. The abutter raised concerns about the neighborhood impact of the project.

As ZBA members mulled over scheduling a site visit, Obear said he didn’t want to rush them, but the project is running on a tight timeline because energy regulations are changing soon.

“We’re under extreme deadlines now with energy codes changing July 1, and any further delay will have a significant impact on the project,” Obear said. “We’re talking a 30% change in costs.”

ZBA alternate member Fred Orloski said neighborhood impact could be a concern and maybe a site visit would help. On the other hand, acting Chairwoman Debra Carney said this has been a drawn-out approval process with several opportunities for abutters to raise concerns — including some feedback already given at the Planning Board meeting — and she was ready to vote, especially because everyone on the board has lived in town and knows the school well. Fellow voting members Robert Smith and Kristin Vevon agreed and they unanimously approved the project.

With the approval, the 8,700-square-foot Blue School is set to be given new life. It was originally built in 1915 as a replacement for a school that burned down that same year and two classrooms were added in 1922. No further construction has been done since that time and the school operated from 1915 to September 1991, before being turned into the Frontier Regional School District’s administrative offices in January 1992. The district sold the building to Obear Construction in 2018.

The construction and renovations, Obear said previously, are expected to take about a year to complete.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

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