Legacy Charter Academy is one of the rare success stories of an abandoned Detroit Public Schools building finding new life and being preserved.

The building was originally known as the Atkinson School and completed in June 1927, but did not open until February 1928. It was built at a cost of $166,000, about $3.2 million in 2026, when adjusted for inflation. Designed by the Detroit-based architectural firm of McGrath, Dohmen and Page in the Collegiate Gothic style. It had an initial capacity of 580 students and served the Krainz Woods and Conant Gardens neighborhoods of the city.

The school was named after Edmund Atkinson, a lawyer who served as the City’s assistant corporation counsel and as a legal adviser to the Detroit Board of Education. He was renowned for his expertise on municipal and political affairs, and had served as a member of the Common Council - forerunner of the City Council - from 1900 to 1904. He also helped to acquire Atkinson Park, adjacent to the school. Following Atkinson’s death on June 12, 1923, of a heart attack at Old City Hall at age 54, it was decided to honor him by naming this school in his honor.

Then-Council President John C. Lodge, a former and future mayor of the city, paid tribute to Atkinson, saying that "in his 35 years of public life, he had never met a City official who enjoyed the full confidence of all fellow officials as Mr. Atkinson," The Detroit News reported June 13, 1923. "Mr. Lodge said that the city had lost an able counselor and a valuable official."

As Detroit grew, it was decided that an addition needed to be built to Atkinson, which was completed in 1931. This section, too, was designed by McGrath, Dohmen and Page. This second section housed the gym, lunch room and auditorium, as well as the Kindergarten room, administrative offices and classrooms. It appears that the school was designed to accommodate a third section, if needed, as the east-facing side of the building is mostly blank.

Given that Atkinson School served Conant Gardens, its student body was relatively diverse when the school opened, compared to others in the city. Detroit still had restrictive housing covenants that barred people of color from living in most of the city’s neighborhoods. Conant Gardens, however, had no such restrictions, and starting in the 1920s, it quickly became a solid, middle-class Black neighborhood.

As the neighborhood continued to grow, especially in the 1940s, the need for classroom space at Atkinson grew, too. By 1955, a temporary building with two classrooms needed to be added to the campus. By 1961, Atkinson had a capacity for 880 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

But as Detroit’s fortunes and population began a half century of decline, so, too, did the Detroit Public School System’s. Adding to the district’s financial turmoil were aging schools in need of expensive repairs and the legalization of charter schools in 1994. By 2010, DPS was placed under emergency financial management as it crippled by a $363,000 deficit, and lost about half its enrollment in that same time frame, and was down to about 85,000 pupils. That led the district to close more than 150 schools since 2000, including Atkinson in 2007. In an attempt to avoid creating more competition for itself and losing even more students, DPS adopted a policy of refusing to sell empty schools to charters.

In 2009, however, DPS emergency financial manager Robert Bobb sold Atkinson to charter operator National Heritage Academy for $600,000. The move was opposed by the school board and others, but it not only saved Atkinson from likely demolition but also the district from accruing blight tickets and causing blight and safety issues in the neighborhood. National Heritage renovated Atkinson for $6 million and said it was careful to honor the historic architecture of the building, though the interior of the school had to be largely gutted.

Atkinson reopened it as Legacy Charter Academy on Sept. 7, 2010, with nearly 400 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. It planned to expand the grades offered over time. As of 2026, it serves about 725 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The school was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Dec. 12, 2011