NATCHEZ — Current residents of the former Brumfield School on St. Catherine Street include a few dust bunnies and a family of spiders.

Those residents will soon be evicted though, as leaders of New Hope Baptist Vision Center’s non-profit housing program prepare to renovate the historic building.

Bishop Stanley Searcy of New Hope Baptist Vision Center said the church’s community development team plans to convert the school into low-income housing for single families.

“We have been trying to get grants and plan out the apartments for about two years now,” Searcy said.

The Natchez Board of Aldermen approved the sale of the Brumfield School to New Hope’s community development team in February 2013.

The building was sold for approximately $121,000, which matched what the city originally paid for the building after its former management company, Stanford Management, abandoned the building in February 2011.

Before New Hope’s community development team can begin contracting companies for full interior and exterior renovation of the school, Searcy said grants from the Mississippi Development Authority and the Mississippi Home Corporation must first be approved.

Searcy said the complete renovation would cost approximately $2.5 million.

“We’re hoping to hear back from those agencies soon, then begin renovating the building in October,” he said.

During the short time period that the building served as apartments, Delores Marvel, 70, said the school offered the perfect location.

“I lived there for about four years,” Marvel said. “I loved it when I first moved in because of the space. And the location — I could walk anywhere. It was just what I wanted.”

Marvel said she felt safe for the first few years she lived at Brumfield.

Then, Marvel said the apartments began to spiral downward, and unwanted guests started loitering outside and inside the building.

“They would be downstairs sitting on the steps near the laundry room,” Marvel said. “Half the time I would be scared to go outside my room.”

When the building closed, Marvel had 30 days to find a new place to live.

The short moving notice wasn’t a bad thing, though. Marvel said she knew her time at the Brumfield School had run its course.

“I hope New Hope will take good care of it, because it’s a great building with a great location,” said Marvel, who now happily lives at St. Francis Apartments in Natchez.

Ward 4 Alderman Tony Fields said he hopes the renovated apartment complex attracts residents such as Marvel, who will take pride in living inside a historic city building.

“People get bent out of shape when people talk about low-income housing,” Fields said. “But just because it’s low-income doesn’t mean it will be poor quality.”

This isn’t the first time New Hope’s community development team has provided low-income housing in Natchez.

In 2011, New Hope cut the ribbon on the Washington Apartment Complex, located on Morgantown Road.

The complex, which cost $1.8 million to construct and has 30 apartment units, is also geared toward low-income residents.

The Brumfield apartments, Searcy said, will boast 29 apartments with two to three bedrooms in each.

“The state of the building, when we took it over from the city, it had a couple of leaks,” Searcy said. “Since then, we’ve repaired most of them.”

If grants are approved and restoration begins in October, Searcy said the apartments could be ready as soon as summer 2016.

“With the Lord’s help, we will get them open,” he said.

Brumfield School was built in 1925 and converted into housing using the city’s Large Unused Municipal Property program in the 1990s under Natchez Mayor Butch Brown’s first administration.