Historic Prince George's high school becoming a film studio

An abandoned school building in Maryland is being refashioned into a movie studio.

The old Fairmont Heights High School, which was Prince George’s County's first publicly funded high school built for Black students during segregation, closed in 2017 and sits fenced off to keep vandals out.

The Fairmont Heights High School Alumni Association has fought to preserve the building that opened in 1950 and its history.

“We just thought, ‘OK, is the building going to be torn down? Is it going to be burned down?’” association President Joan Crowder said. “The vandalism, all of that.”

The alumni association, with some members now in their 70s, is determined to save it.

“When you employ excellence, attention, passion coupled with exuberance, these are the results that you get,” Crowder said.

At the time, it was one of only two schools in the county where Black students could rise to the 12th grade and graduate, according to the alumni association. It provided a nurturing environment where children learned to excel in academics and sports.

“A lot of students rode on school buses past the front door of four or five other white high schools just to come to Fairmont,” said Fred Smith of the alumni association.

The Prince George’s County Council recently took a step toward securing the school's future by declaring it "surplus property," turning it over to the Redevelopment Authority. That sets the stage for it to be turned into a movie studio and educational center that will provide opportunities for young people in the county.

“We took the baton and we ran with it because we saw our beloved Fairmont Heights just sitting there, just deteriorating. And it’s so much more than that,” alumni association Treasurer Denise Haskins said. “So, we pledged to bring it back to its glory.

In addition to a studio to attract filmmaking, it will have classroom space, offices for the association and a museum.

The county has been working with Tressa Azarel Smallwood, cofounder of MegaMind Media. She's a former teacher from Prince George's County.

“She's actually a Prince George’s County homegrown talent who has created this amazing company that does 12-to-15 films a year with some of the biggest studios in the country,” Council member-elect Shayla Adams-Stafford said.

State Sen. Malcolm Augustine, D-District 47, helped secure $5 million in state funding for redevelopment.

“I’ve always felt like it really has an unbelievable potential,” he said. “I felt also that the history of the school and the people that went there is so strong, so vibrant, that we had to come up with a way to maintain that.”

The alumni association is preparing for the school's 75th anniversary and hopes to see Fairmont Heights’ doors open once again sometime soon.

“It's going to be a joyous day,” Haskins said. “We’re going to have a great celebration when it does happen.”

“It has taken a lot, but we're still up for the task,” Crowder said. “We knew what we were going into when we first started this journey and we’re going to see it ‘til the end.”

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