A spokesman for Bay Ridge Preparatory School confirmed to the Courier that the institution is looking to build a new six-story schoolhouse on 89th Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues after we reported that its architect filed permits for such a building on March 11.
“Bay Ridge Prep and a local developer are in the process of conducting a feasibility study that should conclude in the coming months,” director of communications Anthony Hazell said.
The school will have to apply for a special permit with the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals to build on the property that is currently zoned for commercial businesses including auto repair shops and car washes. Most of the surrounding blocks are similarly zoned.
Bay Ridge Prep will have to prove the site is safe and appropriate for a school — it will present air quality analysis, noise, and traffic studies among others to obtain the special permit, a spokesman for the appeals board said. The board sometimes require an applicant to change plans if they don’t jive with the surrounding conditions, he said.
“In one case, an applicant wanted to build a rooftop play area on a school but there was a business with auto body painting booths nearby, so that required further analysis and we made them eliminate that plan — you don’t want the kids playing with those chemicals floating up there,” he said.
The process typically takes between nine months and a year.
The current permit requests propose 29 classrooms, a gymnasium, auditorium, a swimming pool, and two squash courts among other typical schoolhouse facilities. Hazell said school officials have not decided which grades will be sited there yet.
The new school would sit between the PS 104-185 Annex and a bank parking lot. Across 89th Street are a gym, a car dealership, and an auto repair shop. The 86th Street R Subway station is three blocks away on Fourth Avenue.
The site was not on the radar of the local Community Education Council, which recommends sites for public schools in the chronically overcrowded area, the council’s president said. Other schools in the area include PS 264 Bay Ridge Elementary school for the Arts just across Fourth Avenue on 89th Street and PS-IS 104 The Fort Hamilton School main building on Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street.
If constructed, the new school would be the third site for the 18-year-old private institution. Its lower and middle school are located at 8101 Ridge Blvd. between 81st and 82nd streets; and its upper school at 7420 Fourth Ave. between 74th Street and Bay Ridge Parkway.
