Parents Protest Plan To Turn Tribeca School Into Luxury Housing

TRIBECA, NY — A developer is evicting an award-winning public school in Tribeca to build luxury housing and tenant amenities.

P.S. 150 has used two-stories in Independence Plaza to house the 186-seat school for decades, but the building's owners, Vornado Realty Trust and Stellar Management, have decided not to renew the school's lease and instead use the space to build more residential units and amenities for the high-rise complex.

Parents learned in October that the school will have to move for the next academic year and have petitioned the relocation. At a Tuesday rally on the steps of the school, families slammed the landlord's plan to boot the school to erect housing as a short-sighted cash grab.

"How can [Vornado and Stellar] not see the value in this school? Developing luxury here is predicated on the fact that families want to send their kids to high-preforming schools," said Anshal Purohit, the co-president of P.S. 150's Parent Teacher Association, whose son is a fourth grader at the pre-kindergarten through fifth grade school.

"That school is P.S. 150 and it’s right here.”

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The primary school is known for its tight-knit community with just one class per grade and was awarded a National Blue Ribbon by the U.S. Department of Education in 2014 — an honor bestowed on institutions that have test scores in the top 15 percent of their state and no major gaps among student demographics.

P.S. 150 is an undeniable draw for families to the community and hosts the annual Taste of Tribeca event, a food fest and fundraiser for P.S. 150 and neighboring P.S. 234 that is in its 25th year. The eviction is more of a loss than a win for Independence Plaza, said the local City Council member.

“The best amenity for this building to have is an award-winning school," said Councilwoman Margaret Chin at the Tuesday rally. “If it was up to me, I’d want this school to stay [here] forever. We need school seats right here.”

Dozens of students chanted "Save our school" in front of the building while waving home-made posters scrawled with "We love P.S. 150," "Stellar let us stay" and "Keep P.S. 150 in Tribeca."

City Department of Education officials plan to relocate P.S. 150 into the the Peck Slip School in the Seaport District. The Tribeca school would co-locate with Peck Slip, which has 284 pupils, for at least four years until new school space can be constructed at 28-42 Trinity Place, according to a spokesman for the Department of Education.

A pre-kindergarten center is departing the Peck Slip School's fourth floor next academic year and while the school house will be overcrowded, education officials believe there will be enough space to squeeze in both schools, according to Department of Education analysis.

Some parents and pols are not convinced that it will be a comfortable fit and have urged the plaza's landlord to come back to the bargaining table. Vornado and Stellar responded to an Oct. 9 letter penned by a trio of local elected officials asking for a meeting and sat down with city officials and parents on Oct. 24, but to no avail.

A spokeswoman for the building's owners said they gave the city ample time to develop a relocation plan. The city agreed to a three-year lease at the property in 2015, during which time Vornado and Stellar "clearly and transparently confirmed that the lease would not be renewed," said the spokeswoman.

The lease expired in August, but the landlord claims the Department of Education lacked a relocation plan for the school and agreed to issue a one-year extension to the summer of 2019.

"We have agreed not to enforce our rights and to give the Department of Education and the School Construction Authority one more year to finalize a suitable relocation plan," said the spokeswoman representing Vornado and Stellar.

Conversely, the Department of Education says it began "immediately" developing a relocation plan for P.S. 150 when it learned the school would need to move.

Frustrated elected officials called on the city and landlord to restart talks for a creative solution to keep P.S. 150 at Independence Plaza.

“All we’ve heard so far is finger pointing with the city saying the developer’s at fault, the developer saying the city is at fault," said State Senator Brian Kavanagh, whose district includes the school, at Tuesday's rally.

"One thing we know is that neither the parents or the students standing behind me are at fault and they should not be suffering and at the end of the day we need to keep this school in tact, we need to keep this school here.”

Parents are particularly outraged that students will be uprooted twice within a few years — first moving to the Peck Slip School then to the Trinity Place site.

"Students need stability in their school environments," said Margaret Collins, whose son attends first grade at P.S. 150 and waved a "save P.S. 150" sign at Tuesday's rally.

"It's not ideal for them to move around and it stresses the kids out, knowing they'll have to leave this place they've come to love."

Fourth grader Rain Aidasani mailed a post card to Vornado warning that, "You're just doing damage to yourself" by pushing out P.S. 150. Aidasani would only experience the school's co-location to Peck Slip before moving on to middle school, but said he doesn't want to leave the area even for a year.

"I like that it's kind of a community," he said. "The fight [to stay] is for all of us."

Photo courtesy of Caroline Spivack/Patch