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

  • University of Kentucky Integrates New Cleaning Technology

    The University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky., recently installed a new cleaning system designed to improve cooling efficiency on campus, according to a news release. The Facilities Management’s Utilities and Energy Management Unit installed new chiller tubes into two of the chillers at the university’s Central Utility Plant.

  • Agualta STEAM Engine

    Outdoor Learning Spaces and Biophilic Design Create Community in East Los Angeles

    Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School's Agualta STEAM Engine blends education, community, and nature through its adaptable design.

  • Key Considerations for Office-to-Higher-Education Facility Conversions

    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, office-to-alternative-use conversions have become a recurring subject of urban development discourse. Office utilization rates across major U.S. cities remain below 50%, with vacancy rates exceeding 27% in San Francisco and 16% in New York. Higher education facilities present programmatic and spatial use cases that align readily with the typical characteristics of commercial office buildings.

  • Singlewire Software Report Reveals Gaps in K–12 School Entrance Security

    Single Software recently released its first-ever School Entrance Security Report based on more than 500 responses from U.S. school staff members. According to a news release, the findings highlight a gap between K–12 leaders’ wishes for school safety and how safe the schools actually are, as well as the challenges facing students and staff in that goal.

Digital Edition