Work got underway recently at the old Island High School property at Everett Street and Eagle Avenue. 

The Alameda Housing Authority (AHA) acquired the property from the Alameda Unified School District in a 2014 land swap. AHA stated that plans for the property involved a collaborative process with the neighborhood. 

Anne Phillips Architecture will team up with general contractor J.H. Fitzmaurice to execute plans that include 20 one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. These units will be sold to households earning below 60 percent of the area’s median income, AHA stated. Housing and Urban Development set Alameda County’s 2017 median income at $97,400; 60 percent of that figure is $58,440. 

Construction should be completed early next year. More information including eligibility and waiting list updates will be posted at www.alamedahsg.org by late 2017, AHA stated. 

This property has a history that stretches back to 1853, when squatter Franklin Pancoast grew British Queen strawberries there. In 1891 Everett School sprung up on the site. The school lasted for 80 years when the school district demolished it in 1971, replaced the building with “portable classrooms” and moved Island High School onto the site. 

In 2006, Island High moved to 250 Singleton Ave., the site of the former George Miller Elementary School. In April 2013, the school district unceremoniously brought in the bulldozers and razed the old Island High School portables, leaving a fenced-in patch of pavement behind. The property has remained vacant since.