School Construction Authority tells neighbors Sept. 2025 is opening for new middle school in base of 662 Pacific (aka 491 Dean); noisier work starts after 9 am.

I wrote last week that the public deserved some answers about the delays in the middle school, I.S. 653, planned for the B15 tower, which has the residential address of 662 Pacific Street and is marketed as Plank Road. 

A construction trailer has been placed on Sixth Avenue and there's evidence of some, if not heavy, ongoing work on the interior buildout.

The school, with the address 491 Dean Street, will open in September 2025, a representative of the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) confirmed in a message recently circulated to neighbors.

That's not a surprise, since the SCA's latest five-year Capital Plan, updated in February 2022, indicates that the school should open in March 2025. Since they wouldn't open the school mid-year, that points to September 2025

The capital plan should be updated by December. But this update should at least clarify for those who should know--representatives of master developer Greenland Forest City Partners and the state authority Empire State Development--but have responded with deflection or inaccuracies.

Work plan

Tamar Smith, the SCA's Community Relations Manager stated that, while work hours will be approximately 7 am to 4 pm on weekdays, the SCA and its contractor have agreed to begin noisier work at 9 am, thus presumably disturbing fewer neighbors' morning.

Materials for the school will be delivered through the front entrance on Sixth Avenue between Dean and Pacific streeets, as well as second floor windows, Smith wrote.

Note: by my eye, it's a pretty minimal front entrance for a school serving over 800 people. See photo at left.

Also, a partial sidewalk shed will be erected near the Sixth Avenue entrance, though it won't stretch along the whole building

Possible traffic issues

At times, she wrote, if traffic must be temporarily halted to allow large deliveries, flag persons will be stationed to stop traffic and assist pedestrians.

Presumably that won't happen during a daytime activity at the adjacent Barclays Center. 

Sixth Avenue is already constrained, and when a  truck is stopped for a delivery for 38 Sixth Ave. across the street, that narrows the street to less than two lanes.