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Lincoln School Sold

WVIK News

A company that specializes in building affordable housing is the new owner of a former school in Davenport. Monday night the board of education voted to sell the Lincoln School to the D-J Land Company which is a division of The Woda Group based in Westerville, Ohio.

The sale price was 730,000 dollars.

Vice President of Development, Nick Surak, says Woda has a lot of experience converting old schools into affordable housing, and probably has 4 to 5 of these projects underway right now.

"It can be the type of thing that scares off some developers because it's more complicated when you're dealing with an older, historic structure. You could have some environmental issues and you've got to work within the existing envelope of the building versus just having a nice flat piece of ground."

Surak says his company plans to turn Lincoln into 50 units of affordable and market-rate housing. The state of Iowa would help by granting affordable housing tax credits.

Woda would apply for the tax credits this fall, find out next spring if they'll be granted, and then could start construction in the fall of next year. It would be completed in about a year, in 2019. 

Lincoln School closed in 2012.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.