New London — Barbara Petrizzi stepped into what used to be the basement of her former school at 42 Jay St. and looked around in amazement, remembering a time in the 1940s when nuns traversed its halls and the basement area was a bit dingy.

The area now has bright walls and new floors and no water on the floor like she remembers.

“Oh my gosh. I don’t believe it's the same place,” she said during a tour Wednesday of the newly renovated 20-unit affordable housing complex known as St. Mary Place.

The former St. Mary Star of the Sea Elementary School has undergone a transformation over the past two years led by The Connection Inc., a statewide human services and community development agency that secured a 99-year lease of the building from the Diocese of Norwich.

The group partnered with the state Department of Housing, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and other agencies to obtain low-income tax credits and historic rehabilitation tax credits to help fund the $7 million project that had been delayed for a year in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wednesday’s ceremonial ribbon cutting brought together officials that included The Most Rev. Michael Cote, bishop of Norwich, who offered a blessing to the residents living there.

“May the Lord bless this institution and all that dwell in it,” he said.

There are four tenants thus far in a building that offers a mix of rental prices for the studio and one-bedroom units, from market rate units topping $900 to fully subsidized units.

Five of the apartments are set aside as permanent supportive housing for people who cannot afford housing or were recently homeless.

Beth Hogan, director of government and community partnerships for The Connection and the project manager, said The Connection provides case managers for certain tenants.

While The Connection runs a residential sexual offender treatment facility out of a prison in Montville, conditions of local zoning approvals in New London bar them from leasing to registered sexual offenders. The building is also back on the city’s tax rolls.

Mayor Michael Passero said the project would have an impact on a city that strives to provide a mix of housing for residents regardless of their financial status.

“The Connection is a key member of our social services team serving some of the most at-risk and disenfranchised people in our community,” Passero said.

The partnership between The Connection and the church, Passero said, “brought to fruition this terrific adaptive reuse of an historic and architecturally significant school building.”

The brick schoolhouse was built in the 1890s and closed in 2012 as a K-8 school because of declining enrollment and the financial obstacles associated with maintaining the building. The apartments retain some of the original design elements with brick walls, tin ceilings and original wood floors that were refurbished.

Inside, Petrizzi was joined on Wednesday’s tour by Gail Long and Karla Marcille, both of whom graduated in 1950 and had nine kids between them that all attended the school.

The group reminisced about the view of the Blessed Mary statue from what used to be one of the school’s classrooms and now is an apartment. Long recalled that every spring the school children would have a celebration to crown the Mary statue.

g.smith@theday.com