Spruce Street School under NY By Gehy
The Department of Education is a constantly cash-strapped agency, so an increasingly popular method for the DOE to get schools built in fast-growing neighborhoods like Downtown Brooklyn is to have big developers (like you) build a school (or at least the shell of the school) as part of your new residential developments in exchange for concessions like tax breaks or additional buildable square feet. Two recent examples include Forest City Ratner’s building of the Spruce Street elementary school as part of their NY By Gehry (Beekman Tower) skyscraper in lower Manhattan and Two Trees building a new middle school as part of their Dock Street development in DUMBO.
In a recent issue of Crain’s NY, Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, weighed in with his OP-ED “Revise zoning code to boost public facilities” which suggests that the city should actively change zoning in order to encourage developers to include state-of-the-art municipal facilities (like a school) as a part of new developments. With the swift pace of redevelopment in Downtown Brooklyn, this type of arrangement may be the only way for the city to build a new school in the neighborhood before it has a serious overcrowding problem like what has already happened in lower Manhattan.
Our group has looked closely at the new developments which are planning on bringing new residents to the neighborhood and have identified several locations that could potentially hold a new school as part of the project. We would like one or more of you to consider including a school… it would be a major positive for your building, good for the community, and good for the current and future families of the neighborhood. Any developer who steps up to the plate would have our support.
Here are a a couple of prime development locations that would be good for a school in Downtown Brooklyn:
- 10 Metrotech – Forest City Ratner: This is perfectly situated in the center of the bulk of the new high-rise growth in District 13. Since Forest City Ratner is demolishing this building and building more residential units, a mid-block school would be an excellent option. FCR also has a history at Beekman Tower (NY by Gehry) including a new school.
- Parking garage at Bond and 300 Livingston – TF Cornerstone: 600,000 sq feet of redevelopment rights in District 15 with a large footprint would be a great location for a school.
- Undeveloped Red Apple lots on Myrtle: There are still several buildings planned for this stretch by mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis and his Red Apple Group – a D13 school could be worked into one of them.
- Undeveloped lots on Jay St and Concord St in District 13. We’ve heard that a developer has approached city reps about including a community space in a new development at this location. It’s proximity to Downtown and DUMBO (where crowding is already a problem at P.S. 8) would make this a decent middle school option. Please pursue this!
- City Point Phase 3 – Acadia Realty Trust. The final residential tower (and possibly the tallest building in Brooklyn) of the City Point Development is still several years away from the construction phase and is ideally located in D13. A school at this location would help anchor the communty.
- United American Land - According to Brownstoner…UAL is buying up contiguous properties in the block bounded by Fulton, Lawrence, Jay and Willoughby St. Are you going to build something or flip the property? This is centrally located in District 13 and would be great for a school. You’ve been Downtown for long time, make the investment in the residential community and school!
- NYU-Poly – NYU-Poly has plans for building a new grad school at 370 Jay St. and new towers on your campus on Metrotech. You should build a state-of-art lab elementary school for your STEM program on the campus. Reinforce the Tech Triangle initiative with a science oriented elementary school in Downtown Brooklyn.
Thank you for consideration.
Best Regards,
The many current and future families of Downtown Brooklyn,
Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions
Dobroschools.org
