Giant new Upper East Side rental will include 3 schools

Nearly four years ago the city announced plans to demolish three schools—two on the Upper West Side and one on the Upper East Side to make way for residential towers. Plans for the latter it seems are finally materializing.

This past week developer AvalonBay Communities unveiled plans for the full block site of that school building, School of Cooperative Technical Education, at 321 East 96th Street, DNAinfo reports. AvalonBay will transform that massive property into an equally massive 68-story rental with 1,100 apartments.

What’s more the developer plans to create a new space in that building not just for the existing school, but two schools nearby as well.

The total development will span 1.3 million square feet with about 270,000 square feet set aside for the schools. When concrete plans were first unveiled in April this year, the developer had also chalked out about 20,000 square feet for retail.

Of the building’s 1,100 apartments, nearly 330 will be permanently affordable. A little over 30 of those apartments will be made available to families earning 40 percent of the area median income, and the rest of the affordable units will be open to families making 60 percent of the area median income.

The project is still a while away from actualization as it has to go through a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. But local residents, particularly the schools, are on board, and the developers anticipate the spaces for the schools to open 2021 and 2022, and the residential part to be complete sometime in 2023.

Google Maps

• 68-Story East Harlem Tower Would Have 1K Homes and New School Buildings [DNAinfo]
• Upper East Side Rental Project Would Have Two Schools, Plus Retail [Curbed]