By 2008, public school enrollment had slipped below 100,000 students. Between 20, Detroit's population dropped by more than a quarter of a million, to just over 700,000 people. More than 80 schools are listed as available. Another 45 are leased, according to the district. The Detroit district has made more than $16 million by selling or leasing closed schools and vacant land. "Many districts are now on their second and third round of closings" and are increasingly looking at the practices of other cities, including Detroit, Dowdall said. A reform board in Philadelphia has voted to close 23 schools. Chicago expects to shutter 50 schools and programs before fall classes begin. Some of the nation's largest school districts have seen their enrollment plummet and budget deficits rise, forcing them to close half-empty buildings and those that are too costly to maintain. "Detroit has more experience with finding new uses because it has had more empty buildings on its hands," said Emily Dowdall, a senior associate with the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, a public policy organization that released a report earlier this year on the growing number of vacant schools in a dozen U.S. The practice also offers lessons to other districts confronting the same challenges. Now the city is getting high marks for its efforts to reuse those buildings - as churches, substances-abuse centers, housing and more. "That kind of clinched it." Burton was among dozens of Detroit public schools forced to close in recent years as the district sank into debt and parents sought better education options. "It had all the seats and a projection booth built in 1924," Landy said (of the building pictured above). Developer Joel Landy remade the school into the Cass City Cinema at the Burton Theater. These days, film dialogue and soundtracks fill the nearly 100-year-old building, which has found new life as a movie theater. Repurposed real estate in Detroit, Burton TheaterÄETROIT - When it was a high school, the auditorium and gymnasium at the Burton International School thrummed with the sounds of students gathering for assemblies or bouncing balls.
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