Collegiate School files plans for Riverside South building

Oldest independent school in U.S. to build 180K sf property; in contract to buy site from Extell

From left: The Collegiate School, Gary Barnett and John F. Kennedy, Jr.
From left: The Collegiate School, Gary Barnett and John F. Kennedy, Jr.

The country’s oldest independent school, which has long been characterized by its Spartan Upper West Side digs, is planning to build a new 10-story, 180,000 square-foot building at Extell Development’s Riverside South site.

The Collegiate School, which counts John F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Duchovny among its alumni, filed plans today to construct a new school at 301 Freedom Place, according to Department of Buildings records.

The building is slated to include a gymnasium, a locker room, a theater and an outdoor recreation space. A source familiar with Collegiate said that the school is in contract to buy the plot of land, located at  West 62nd Street and West End Avenue, from Extell.  Kohn Pedersen Fox is the architect of record.

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Last year, Collegiate agreed to sell its current headquarters at 260 West 78th Street to the Reformed Protestant Church for $97 million. That building, which has housed the school since 1892, reportedly lacks basic amenities such as lockers and adequate recreational space.

Collegiate is on holiday break this week and could not be immediately reached for comment.

Correction: John F. Kennedy, Jr. attended the Collegiate School, not his father. This fact was misstated in a previous version of this post.