The Whitted School building, located in the historic African American community of Hayti, chronicles the advancement of African American education in Durham during the early and mid-twentieth century in the context of a segregated school system. Serving as the first high school for African Americans and later becoming home to an elementary and middle school, the Whitted School building was a significant pre-integration school from a period in Durham when schools for African Americans fought to receive funding, materials, and buildings comparable to those afforded to white schools. Through the mid-70’s, Whitted School brought together black students from across Durham serving as a training ground for students and staff who would become leading and influential citizens in Durham’s black financial, educational and political communities.

In 2012, after sitting unoccupied for several years, Forty/AM, together with its development partners, The Integral Group, Belk Architecture and Durham Public Schools, proposed a public-private partnership to the county of Durham that would repurpose the J.A. Whitted School site — converting a blighted building into a community hub, and supporting both short- and long- term economic development in the area. The Whitted School Project involves redeveloping the Whitted School building into an intergenerational shared community space that will house a pre-kindergarten and independent living complex for low-income senior citizens, becoming the first such intergenerational facility in North Carolina.

Veranda at Whitted School is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) on steroids. Boasting an extremely complicated capital structure to include:

• Durham Public Schools
• Durham County
• City of Durham
• Durham Housing Authority
• Federal LIHTCs
• State Housing Tax Credits
• Federal Historic Tax Credits
• State Historic Tax Credits
• HUD 221 (d)4 Financing
• Federal Home Loan Bank AHP Funding