A look at schools inking real estate deals in NYC

Alex Jinishian and 925 Ninth Avenue
Alex Jinishian and 925 Ninth Avenue

Given that New York City seems to suffer perpetually from a lack of good schools, the addition of one in a neighborhood can lure homebuyers and boost property values. But schools are also behind a variety of recent real estate deals across the city, with a total of eight scheduled to expand or open in 2013 and 2014, the New York Observer reported. Two are already up and running.

One of the upcoming schools is the Speyer Legacy School, which last week inked a lease for an 85,000-square-foot campus that encompasses 400 West 59th Street and 925 Ninth Avenue. By 2015, the school will have an estimated 324 students — up from its first class of 26 in 2009. This new facility will open in the fall and is ten times the size of its current digs at 15 West 86th Street.

“The baby boomers’ kids are having kids now,” Alex Jinishian, a Colliers International vice chairman who represented Speyer in the lease, told the Observer. “New Yorkers are interested in education and spending their capital on that.”

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Another example is a school named Basic Trust — the non-profit childcare branch of the Mandell School — which last week snagged a 5,541-square-foot townhouse at 127 West 94th Street for $3.8 million. It’s slated to open in 2014.

Across the park at 112 and 114 East 73rd Street, the Buckley School shelled out $16 million in September for two 5,000-square-foot townhouses across from its main facility.

YDE School in Brooklyn, set to open this fall, is another example. The school announced in October its move from Gravesend to 25,000-square-foot digs in Sheepshead Bay. [NYO]Zachary Kussin