BY RICHARD BLODGETT | The Chelsea Vocational High School building, on the west side of Sixth Ave., between Dominick and Broome Sts., may be in play for development.
Jennifer Maldonado, executive director of the New York City Educational Construction Fund, attended the Community Board 2 Schools and Education Committee meeting Monday night and discussed plans to issue a Request for Expressions of Interest, or R.F.E.I., to private developers to seek proposals for redeveloping the building.
E.C.F. works with developers on mixed-use real estate projects that include school facilities. In an era of scarce city funds for schools, the goal in the case of Chelsea Vocational is to raise funds for a badly needed interior renovation and expansion of classroom space by selling air rights to a developer.
The building currently contains two schools: Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School and the NYC iSchool.
Maldonado said it was far too early to know what might be proposed, or whether developers would even be interested.
If they are, one possibility is a residential tower on top of the school. Under zoning for the site, the tower could be up to 240 feet tall, perhaps higher, but whether that would actually happen is unknown.
A second possibility is a new building on the Trinity-owned parking lot on Varick St. behind the school using Chelsea Vocational air rights.
A third option is relocation of the school to a different site at the developer’s expense, allowing the developer to convert the school to a residential condo.
Maldonado promised to get back to the community board when she knew more.
The school building — whose exterior is not landmarked — is in sore need of an interior renovation. It was originally built in 1905 as an elementary school and the scale of its interior design and facilities is for smaller children. The cafeteria is so small, students must eat in shifts throughout the school day. The gym, formerly an auditorium, has a sloping floor. Electrical outages plague graphic-design and tech students working on computers.
