Snowdrop Montessori: Welcome to the Gerson Building

CBA Director of Real Estate speaks about invigorating neighborhoods at the opening of the Snowdrop Montessori school in CBA’s Gerson Building located at 181 Washington Street in Haverhill, MA.

Our Real Estate Development team helped welcome Snowdrop Montessori School to the Gerson Building in Haverhill on Tuesday, September 21st.

The school will serve children ages 15 months to 33 months within Haverhill’s Mount Washington neighborhood. Families who live in the Gerson Building will have preference for attending Snowdrop Montessori.

Coalition for a Better Acre’s Director of Real Estate, Claire Ricker, is excited for the partnership and the positive impact it will have on the Haverhill community. “When we developed the Gerson property into 44 units of permanent affordable housing with commercial space at the street level, we were committed to using the space in a way that would provide a benefit not just to our tenants, but as a tool for neighborhood activation. As retail and now commercial office activity has moved primarily online, we knew we wanted a tenant that would serve as a neighborhood anchor and would provide a lasting benefit to the City of Haverhill.”

“It is increasingly evident to me, as an affordable housing developer, that the neighborhood, not the government or the individual, is the essential unit driving social change,” Ricker said. “If you’re trying to improve lives, you have to think about improving many elements of a single neighborhood, in a systematic way, at a steady pace. With this in mind, we felt that a partnership with Wildflower Schools and specifically our own Snowdrop Montessori School was crucial to meeting our goals of not only providing safe, stable housing, but also to use our physical space to further invigorate the neighborhood.”

Wildflower Schools’ state their commitment to physical engagement in the urban fabric by prioritizing street-level school spaces on walkable streets allows for neighborhood connection into the daily work of children and increases the presence of children and families in the community.

Snowdrop Montessori is currently accepting applications on a rolling basis. Snowdrop accepts state education vouchers and offers need-based scholarships. For more information, or to fill out an enrollment application, email [email protected] or visit https://snowdropmontessori.org.