Charter school slated for Bronx retail redevelopment 

A new $30 million Bold Charter School is coming to a retail site in the Bronx.

The planned eight-story, 81,600-square-foot school nabbed the space at 1472 Boston Road on the southwest corner of Stebbins Avenue in the Crotona East Park neighborhood.

The project was designed by prominent school designers, KSS Architects, for the 14,000-square-foot site.  

To create the school for Kindergarten through 8th grade students, a 39-year leasehold condominium transaction was negotiated on behalf of Bold by Lindsay Ornstein, Stephen Powers and Casey Noel of OPEN Impact Real Estate along with Thomas Hines of Transwestern.

The condominium structure will allow the school to have a full property tax exemption for its space. 

Nick Zweig of Locations Commercial Real Estate represented owner 1472 Boston Partners LLC, an entity controlled by investor and developer Joseph Riegler. 

“The owners were looking for an opportunity to redevelop the property and maximize its full potential,” Zweig said in an email.

The site hosts a 17,300-square-foot retail property that had been occupied by the grocery store Fine Fare. It was purchased by Riegler in June 2021 for $3.5 million. 

Bold currently serves students at two temporary facilities nearby at 1093 Southern Boulevard and 1090 Close Avenue. The new school is expected to open for the 2025/2026 academic year and will serve just over 800 students in School District 12.

The OPEN/Transwestern team first identified neighborhood sites suitable for a school and ran a Request for Proposals (RFP) process. Riegler’s winning proposal tapped KSS, along with construction firm Promont. DBI Projects will provide project management services and oversee construction.   

The state-of-the-art property will have 27 classrooms, a full-size double-height gymnasium, a double-height cafeteria and a covered outdoor rooftop sports and play space. Powers said the design by KSS also allows for separate entrances and floors for the elementary and middle schoolers.

The current, 1925-era building opened as a movie house known as the Boston Road Theatre and became part of Loew’s Theatres in 1936 before it was shuttered by 1952. 

City records show it became an Independent Grocers Association (IGA) supermarket in the 1970s but by 1984 was taken in rem by the city for non-payment of taxes. It was sold to other entities who also did not keep up with taxes and those liens were sold multiple times until the lien sale’s Bank of New York trustees took it back for the non-payment of roughly $5,600 in property taxes.

Through a court-ordered foreclosure of the tax liens, it was sold for $322,000 in 2002 to the owners of Fine Fare. By May of 2006, Fine Fare had been granted a 25-year Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program that was to become effective after construction on the redevelopment resulted in an increase to its assessed value. 

Riegler is no stranger to the Bronx.

An entity connected to the investor earlier this month bought a Bronx development site at 1351 Jerome Avenue and 1342 Inwood Avenue in Mount Eden for $20.5 million from an entity tied to Dragos Adrian Firescu’s A&A Moving and Self Storage. He previously submitted permits in January 2023 for a five-story, 105,000-square-foot community facility at 1342 Inwood Avenue. 

Construction documents now show three stories for a school will be added to the current two stories that will host an ambulatory health facility.