Mary E. Wells School is a historic former school building at 80 Marcy Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is located west of downtown Southbridge, at the northwest corner of Marcy Street and Main Street (Massachusetts Route 131), at approximately 42°4′40″N 72°2′15″W. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 3, 2023, under reference number 100008958, with significance cited in the areas of architecture and education.
Architecture The building is a U-shaped, two-story masonry structure constructed of brick with cast stone trim, set on a raised basement. Its principal façade, facing Marcy Street, features two projecting entry pavilions with elaborate door surrounds. It was designed by the Boston architectural firm Peabody & Stearns and is described as one of the last known commissions of that firm. Sources indicate the original design was more elaborate but was simplified to reduce construction costs. The building was expanded in 1925 and again in the 1980s.
History Constructed in 1916, the school was funded by Mary E. Wells, the wife of George Wells, a founder of the American Optical Company, a locally prominent eyewear manufacturer and once the region's largest employer. Mary E. Wells was the first woman elected to public office in Southbridge, having been chosen to serve on the town's Board of Education in the 1890s, and the building is named in her honor.
The school opened as Southbridge's first purpose-built public high school; secondary education in the community had previously been conducted at the town hall. It functioned as the high school until 1960, when the current Southbridge High School opened, after which it was converted to use as a junior high school. The facility remained in educational use for nearly a century before closing in 2012, after which it stood vacant for approximately ten years.
Adaptive reuse The property, owned by the city, was subsequently offered through a request for proposals for redevelopment. A joint venture of Arch Communities and WinnDevelopment was selected to convert the approximately 90,000-square-foot building into senior housing. The project, valued at roughly $26 million, was supported in part by federal and state historic tax credits made available through the building's NRHP listing, along with federal and state low-income housing tax credits and other public and nonprofit funding sources. The conversion, completed around 2022, produced "The Residences at Wells School," a mixed-income community of 62 one- and two-bedroom apartments for residents aged 55 and older, most of which are income-restricted. The rehabilitation preserved exterior features, restored original elements, and reused interior components such as gymnasium flooring and a scoreboard. A separate adaptive reuse project, Southbridge Mills, followed nearby in 2023.
