Basis Independent Brooklyn school headed to Red Hook

$40 million campus to rise on long-vacant lot

Rendering of 556 Columbia Street in Brooklyn
Rendering of 556 Columbia Street in Brooklyn

Basis Independent Brooklyn, a new private school offering kindergarten through 12th grade, is slated to open this fall on a now-vacant Red Hook lot.

Advocates for the project have said the busing and food contracts will help bring local jobs to a lot that has been abandoned for years. The 1,000-seat school at 556 Columbia Street will cost about $40 million to build and charge roughly $23,500 a year in tuition. The school will offer chemistry, physics and biology for every year grade in the middle-school program, and all curriculums will emphasize technology. Critics have said the programs are too stressful for the students.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Meanwhile, in Chelsea, a buying boom arose as a result of the elite Avenues School, a 1,600-seat private school at 259 10th Avenue that opened in 2012 and serves pre-K through ninth grade. [WSJ]Mark Maurer