The DeKalb (Ill.) school board has approved a $31.8 million plan to convert a Northern Illinois University building to an elementary school.

The DeKalb Daily Chronicle reports that the $1.86 million lease-to-purchase plan for the university’s School of Nursing building will renovate the space into a three-section elementary school that would open for the 2025-26 academic year. Costs to renovate the building will total about $28.5 million.

"This is a tremendous outcome for our students and families who live in DeKalb's north corridor and for our community as a whole," DeKalb superintendent Minerva Garcia-Sanchez said.

Other building options the board had been considering were to acquire land and build an elementary school for $38 million, or acquire the Northern Illinois facility, demolish it, and build an elementary school there for $31.5 million.

The 9.1-acre university property consists of a single-story, 24,000-square-foot structure that Northern Illinois had decided was surplus real estate.