Mayor Menino Proposes New Downtown Boston School

The mayor of Boston wants to convert a building in the city's North End that once housed Mitt Romney's presidential campaign headquarters into a school to serve the growing number of families living downtown.

Mayor Thomas Menino says the goal is open the school to 500 students in kindergarten through the eighth-grade in the fall of 2016.

The city council must approve nearly $13 million to buy and then renovate the three-story, 42,000-square-foot building. The proposal will be presented to the council on Monday.

The Commercial Street building was constructed by the federal government in the 1960s, and has housed offices of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a law firm and a furniture store.

Menino says the need for the school is evidence of the school system's growing popularity among families.

"This new school will help achieve our goal of sending Boston children to quality schools closer to home," he said.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom