Dattner Architects files plan for long-dormant Harlem site

98,000-square-foot building to be Boys & Girls Club of Harlem’s new home, residential rental

525 West 125th Street
525 West 125th Street

After decades languishing unused, a former school building at 523-525 West 145th Street in Harlem is finally puttering toward a future as a residential rental building and home of the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem.

Dattner Architects filed an application for a change in occupancy/use on the site, which is currently home to a five-story, 97,895-square-foot structure that was constructed in 1902. The plan, according to the job description, is to convert the existing five-story public school building from public school to residential use. At the same time, a portion of the building will be reserved for the Boys & Girls Club while adding apartment units above, Dattner employee Patrick Chung confirmed. Project leader Kristen Nelson, a senior associate with the firm, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Developers have been working with the nonprofit to combine a new home for the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem with residential housing for a number of years, according to past reports. But those efforts have stalled over community disagreements about whether to tear down the existing structure.

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As of July the group was in the second phase of securing as much as $10 million in tax credits from the State Historic Preservation Office and had plans to apply for funding from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. At last count, $4 million in city funds had been committed to the project, as well as an additional $7 million in traditional financing. Estimates put the total cost of the project at about $40 million, Boys & Girls Club executives told DNAinfo last summer.

Monadnock Construction, which is also developing a 130-unit apartment building with Alloy Development in Dumbo, a 30-unit rental at 306 West 128th Street along with Richman Group Development and a $350 million mixed-use Bronx development with Signature Urban Properties, purchased the building from the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem for $4.25 million in December of 2013, according to city records. Monadnock’s Jens Peter Hansen was not immediately available for comment.