The empty, neglected building of P.S. 186 has long been a fixture on 145^th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. But if one organization has its way, that will change by next year.

The M.L. Lewis Boys and Girls Club of Harlem recently secured a $100,000 loan from the Harlem Community Development Corp. for preliminary development costs to renovate the space, which the club’s leaders say they hope will bring a 23-year effort to fruition.

The project aims to turn the former school into a new home for the Boys and Girls Club and a large community center. There will also be an affordable housing component, in which housing prices will be tailored to the median income in the area, said Sherry Lewis, chairwoman of the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Club, which works as part of the Boys and Girls Club of America to help to provide disadvantaged youth with educational and recreational programs.

Harlem Community Development Corp. provides predevelopment loans to residential proposals or mixed-use projects that incorporate at least 10 units of housing, said Wayne Benjamin of Harlem Community Development Corp.

The group’s board approved the loan, which has a maximum term of 18 months at 5 percent interest, because it was familiar and supportive of the project. “It’s an interesting and ambitious program that a lot of people have been waiting for” for a long time, Benjamin said.

The project also stood out because of its feasibility. “It actually made sense,” Curtis Archer of Harlem Community Development Corp. said, describing the idea as having “some legs behind it.”

The loan will help the Boys and Girls Club take some steps forward by allowing it to hire design and financial consultants. It still needs to find financing for the actual construction, but “a lot of that is dependent on having final drawings,” Lewis said.

She said she was confident that the project would be able to secure financing in time to break ground by next summer.

P.S. 186 has sat vacant and neglected for more than 30 years. The concrete wall surrounding the building is covered in graffiti and several outdated work permits hang on a padlocked gate guarding the entrance. The building itself hasn’t had a roof in decades and trees grow inside, sometimes sticking out of the windows.

“It’s wasted space,” said Russ Kramer, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years.

P.S. 186 was one of several schools in the area that got shut down during the 1970s, Kramer said. Some have since been turned into senior centers, some into condos and some still sit empty, waiting on stalled plans.

The city sold the P.S. 186 property to the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem in 1986 for about $300,000, Lewis said. The club was supposed to develop the property within three years, devoting 85 percent of the space to non-profit use, but plans fell through and nothing happened.

A restructuring of the board of directors in 2005, breathed new life into the project though. The new board selected ARTAC Development Partners to take on the project, and it presented plans to Community Board 9 in 2007. Again, the project faltered, but the board persisted, putting out another request for proposals this year, this time selecting the Alembic Development Co.

Although in some senses the development has been years in the making, for this particular phase, many decisions have yet to be made. It is too early to tell what the final structure will look like and whether the building will be torn down or simply renovated – partly because the whole area is being rezoned. “Until you have closure on the zoning, you can’t really be definitive about what you’re going to build,” Lewis said.

Kramer expressed frustration about how slow the process has been. “You can’t let a building go and go and go,” he said. “They could have made a senior center out of it” by now.

But the Boys and Girls Club isn’t concerned about past delays. “I wouldn’t be able to speak to what’s happened in the last 20 years,” Lewis said. “But I think what’s important is that we’re moving forward now.”

The plans for the former school will be discussed at Community Board 9’s Housing, Land Use, and Zoning Committee meeting on Oct. 20.