The story of a Bronx public school that for 20 years exposed its students to hazardous toxins suddenly has a real estate connection.

City Limits reported that a loophole in the Department of Education’s leasing policy left students, teachers, parents and school officials at P.S. 51, located at 3200 Jerome Avenue in Bedford Park, in the dark about the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE), a metal degreaser recently declared to be a carcinogen to humans, 10 times above safe exposure levels. In the soil vapor just below the first-floor cafeteria, TCE levels are nearly 10,000 times above safe levels. [more]

The Department of Education’s decision to eliminate about 150 seats in a forthcoming Union Square school was made to push forward construction for the contested school and avoid delays posed by angry residents of a neighboring co-op, according to DNAinfo.
The DOE has been working to build a middle school and high school with 868 seats at 10 East 15th Street, but residents of the neighboring Victoria co-op, at 7 East 14th Street, complained about the noise and crowds the school would bring to their block. Rather than face litigation from the residents, the DOE and School Construction Authority chose to compromise in order to move quickly on the school, which it said is necessary to alleviate crowding in the district’s other schools. [more]

From left: Paul Mas, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, Howard Kesseler, director at Newmark Knight Frank and One Peck Slip

The New York City School Construction Authority has closed on One Peck Slip, a four-story, 71,000-square-foot building between Pearl and Water streets which was previously a post office, purchasing it from the U.S. Postal Service for $13.5 million, Crain’s reported.

“Not only did the U.S. Postal Service achieve a fair price for Peck Slip Station, but the sale will result in a much needed new school in Lower Manhattan,” said Paul Mas, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, which represented the postal service in the deal. [more]

The Department of Education has agreed to decrease the capacity of a
proposed school in Chelsea to 730 students from 850, and will cap the size of
the building at eight stories, or 116 feet, in response to complaints
from residents in the nearby Victoria, DNAinfo
reported.

Initially, eight stories had been the minimum height of the proposed
building, to be located at 10 East 15th Street. Residents of the
Victoria, at 7 East 14th Street, said that the School Construction
Authority had not been informing them about the plans for the school. (note: correction appended) [more]

Extell’s Gary Barnett and a rendering of Riverside Center

The city’s School Construction Authority has tapped Dattner Architects to design the Riverside Center School (P.S./I.S. 342), the new public school at Extell Development’s massive Upper West Side development site. An announcement from Dattner provides more details about the upcoming “green” pre-K-through-8th grade-school, which will contain more than 20 classrooms as well as art and music rooms, a science suite, library, gym and cafeteria. It will be housed on the first four floors of Atelier Christian de Portzamparc and SLCE’s planned high-rise tower on West End Avenue, between 60th and 61st streets, and is slated for completion in time for the 2015-2016 school year. — Sarabeth Sanders [more]

The city’s School Construction Authority has proposed a $9.3 billion
budget that would slash the number of new schools it planned to build by
2014 from 56 to 26, the New York Times reported. The budget, which is expected to pass the Panel for Education Policy tomorrow and will then move onto the City Council for final approval, would mean only 14,000 new spots for students, as opposed to the roughly 28,000 that had been approved by the City Council last year. Comments

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City officials proposing to build a school on Caton Avenue near East 7th Street in Kensington were taken by surprise at a public hearing yesterday when the owner of half the site said that he wants to finish his own stalled residential project on the same land, the Brooklyn Paper reported. “This is the first we have been aware of it,” Tami Rachelson of the School Construction Authority told Community Board 7. If developer Robert Cherry gets the approval to restart his controversial project, the city would have to pay more to acquire the property. No residents spoke in support of Cherry’s 17-unit apartment building, and the board’s land use committee voted unanimously to advise the city to reject the zoning variance. [more]

The city’s School Construction Authority appears likely to emerge as one of the biggest real estate winners of the recession, having taken advantage of the lower costs of construction and the large supply of stalled private sector projects to build a record 26 new public school facilities this year. According to the New York Times, the authority is in its second year of an $11.7 billion five-year capital plan and that has catapulted it to the forefront of the construction industry. “All of a sudden, marquee construction firms that would only do projects that were $15 million and above are bidding for SCA jobs,” said Louis Coletti, who heads the Building Trades Employers’ Association. Comments

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Lorraine Grillo has been named president of the New York City School Construction Authority, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday. A 17-year veteran of the agency, Grillo has been acting president since April, when she stepped in to fill the role vacated by former SCA president Sharon Greenberger, who was tapped as COO for the Department of Education. TRD [more]

Developer Sheldon Solow sold a small piece of his 9.2-acre East River
development site to the city’s School Construction Authority for
$33.25 million.

The parcel at the northeast corner of First Avenue and 35th Street is
about a third of a complete block he owns through his East River
Realty Company. Although part of the larger $4 billion East River
development plan, it is two blocks south of the largest parcel in the
project that runs on the east side of First Avenue between 38th and
41st streets.

The city signed the contract and closed on the purchase of the
23,581-square-foot parcel Dec. 23, city property records published
today say. The deed did not provide a street address, but identified
the property as lot 2 on block 967.

The zoning on the approximately half-acre lot permits a 10 floor area
ratio, city records show, that allows building up to 235,810 square
feet, putting the price at about $141 per foot.

City schools spokesperson Marge Feinberg said in an e-mail that it was
difficult to locate new schools. [more]