Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

New Elementary School Opens in South Bronx, N.Y.

  • By Matt Jones
  • 09/10/24

Forte Construction Corp. recently announced that it has completed construction on P.S. 487, a new four-story elementary school in the South Bronx, according to a news release. The school is open for the current academic year and will serve more than 500 students in grades PreK–5. The 85,000-square-foot school was built on land previously used for portable classroom trailers for a district high school.

The school features four PreK classrooms, three kindergarten classrooms, and 15 standard classrooms, the news release reports. It also features eight special education classrooms, two speech and resource rooms, and occupational and physical therapy space. According to the news release, the new school comes during a time when “more than 300,000 students in the city’s highest-need schools are learning in overcrowded classrooms,” citing a United Federation of Teachers study from November 2023.

“Thanks to the excellent collaboration between the School Construction Authority and our team at Forte Construction, and all of our vendors and subcontractors, we are proud to deliver this state-of-the-art school building in advance of the start of the next school year in September,” said Project Manager Dan Villandre. “Our team constructed this school from the ground up and are proud that P.S. 487 will be a welcoming haven for students in the South Bronx for countless decades to come.”

Outdoor amenities include a 3,400-square-foot play yard featuring a volleyball court, basketball court, and running track. It also features a garden for academic use by students and teachers.

The project broke ground in July 2021 as part of a School Construction Authority 2020–2024 Capital Program that provided $1.6 billion to 21 school buildings to add the capacity for just short of 12,000 students to the Bronx, the news release reports.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Kimball International Releases Curated Design Support Program

    Commercial furnishings company Kimball International recently announced the launch of a new end-to-end design support program, DesignSuite. According to a news release, its goal is to guide architecture & design professionals and dealer partners through the process from vision to specification.

  • Ohio State University Opens 26-Story Hospital

    The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center recently opened in Columbus, Ohio, standing 26 stories and covering 1.9 million square feet, according to a university news release. The project marks ten years of effort and is the university’s largest single-facility construction project ever.

  • College of the Desert Hits Construction Milestone on New Campus

    College of the Desert recently announced that the construction of its new Palm Springs Campus in Palm Springs, Calif., recently reached a major construction milestone, according to a news release. The college is partnering with general contractor C.W. Driver Companies, which recently “topped out” the facility by placing the final beam in its structure.

  • University of Arizona Approves New Residence Hall

    The Arizona Board of Regents recently approved plans for a new residence hall at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., according to a news release. The new facility is scheduled to open in fall 2028 and have the capacity for more than 1,200 students, enforcing a new university expectation that all first-year students live on campus.