Muskegon’s Steele School To Become Homes And Sports Hub

A Muskegon resident is moving forward with his plans to turn the former Steele Middle School, later re-named Muskegon Middle School, which has been vacant for the past two years, into a single-family housing and sports complex.

Rashard Thrower, who is the CEO of Q9, got approval from the Muskegon City Commission to purchase and develop the property, which will be home to at least 33 single-family dwellings and an indoor sports complex at 1150 Amity Ave.

Get our free mobile app

In the announcement of this new development, he gave details, which were reported on by MLive, about the cost of the project and homes that he’s expecting to build. He also shared information on how he could possibly make the homes cheaper in the long run

The total expected cost is between $23 million and $28 million, Thrower said, but could be less. Homes are expected to cost between $233,000 and $329,000 to build, Thrower said, but he did not give a possible sales price.

One plan he is going to try to put in place will allow the homes to be sold at a lower price, if he's able to pull it off:

He did say that he is considering starting a nonprofit and putting the property into a community land trust, which he said could reduce the overall cost of the homes to buyers by $25,000 to $45,000. Buyers would then be required to pay a monthly land lease in return. He also plans to create an education program to assist first-time homebuyers.

If everything goes smoothly, they should begin infrastructure towards the end of this year or in early 2027.