What To Do With Marblehead's Coffin School?

MARBLEHEAD, MA —Last month's opening of the new Joseph and Lucretia Brown Elementary School created the question of what now to do with the Coffin School building.

Town officials and representatives from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council are looking for residents to give their input on the future use of the building during a virtual forum on Dec. 7. Those looking to take part in the forum can register here.

The School Department owns the building with town meeting approval required to repurpose the land.

A recently completed Housing Production Plan included the need for more affordable housing and housing diversity for Marblehead residents. Officials said a priority recommendation from the plan was to leverage public assets for mixed-income housing with support from a MassHousing grant.

The Dec. 7 forum will be the first in what officials said will be a "variety of public engagement opportunities where attendees will help identify a vision for the Coffin School site, review redevelopment scenarios and pro9vide input on priorities and tradeoffs."

The process is designed to eventually lead to a Request for Proposal to select a developer to best implement the town's vision for the property.

The Dec. 7 meeting will help prioritize housing typologies, density, open space and other features of the redevelopment.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)