The Atlanta school district is considering converting the long-shuttered Howard High School to a middle school.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that reusing the Howard building, which closed as a high school nearly 40 years ago, is one way to ease crowding at Inman Middle School, which has more than 1,000 students on a campus with an official capacity of 875.

Howard opened in 1924 as an elementary school and was later converted to a high school. It closed in 1976. The district last used the building in 2008 — for administrative functions.

The renovations needed to convert Howard to a middle school could cost more than $30 million, according to district estimates

The school has several notable alumni. Martin Luther King Jr. attended Howard when it was a grade school. Also attending classes at the campus were Atlanta’s first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, and civil rights activist and presidential adviser Vernon Jordan.