Sometimes a little patience pays off. OK, a lot of patience.

Lowell Elementary School was closed in 1974 and razed two years later. Now the Minneapolis school district is finally selling the parcel in the Jordan neighborhood.

It's the oldest disposable property in the school district's inventory. The wedge-shaped lot just off W. Broadway Avenue is too small for the size of schools the district is building these days. But it will hold 14 new single-family houses.

That the sale finally went through says a lot about the boom in new housing in the troubled neighborhood in the past few years. In 2000, it had more than 90 vacant lots and builders shunned the area. But in the last few years, homes have been popping up, some subsidized and others not.

The two- to five-bedroom homes will be built by nonprofit Project for Pride in Living. They'll sell for $171,500 to $221,000. Subsidies mean that half are reserved for people earning less than $61,600 annually for a family of four. The rest are for those earning less than $88,550.

The original Lowell school was built in 1886. After a fire, it was rebuilt in 1893 and expanded in 1912. After demolition, the district used the land for snow storage in the winter for a while.

The Lowell site joins a number of other former Minneapolis school sites converted to housing. Some schools such as Whittier, Bremer and Madison were converted to multi-unit housing within their original shells. Other schools such as Agassiz, Page, Motley elementary schools and West High School and the Central High School football field became sites for new housing. And just last month the last remaining fragment of East High School was razed for a condo project at University and Central avenues.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438.