Calhoun, a private school with two locations on the Upper West Side, has enlisted Cushman & Wakefield to sell its lower school building at 160 West 74th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. Calhoun’s main building can be found at 433 West End Ave at 81st Street.
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Known as the Robert L. Beir Lower School Building, 160 West 74th Street has operated as a school since it was built in 1896.
“The sale of Calhoun‘s 74th Street building is related to our plans to acquire a new building through our merger with the Metropolitan Montessori School,” Calhoun’s director of communications told ILTUWS.
Earlier this year, Calhoun and Montessori announced their plans to merge in the fall of 2023. The announcement from the two schools states that “The merging of Metropolitan Montessori into Calhoun will create a dual-track early childhood program – the first of its kind for a New York City school – that gives greater choice and flexibility to families at a pivotal stage of their child’s development.”
The building’s listing description describes an “opportunity for another school or numerous other potential end-users to own one of the most remarkable and historic buildings in Manhattan.”
Craig Waggner of Cushman & Wakefield told ConnectCRE that “Alternatively, the property presents investors with the ripe opportunity for a boutique residential conversion or as a single-family mansion within an established and thriving neighborhood.”
Cushman’s John Ciraulo tells ILTUWS they’re aiming to get something in the mid-$20 million range, and that because the 23,000 square foot building is located within a historic district, the buyer will need to preserve its current facade.
“operated as a school since it was built in 1896”
wasn’t this a drug rehab operation run by Phoenix House for awhile?
The Phoenix House was in the building next door (to the west) to the Calhoun School. That building was recently converted to condominiums.
Calhoun has only operated that building in West 74th Street since 1989.
I don’t believe it was a school building, for any school, before that.
No, prior to 1989 it was the Baldwin School, which ceased operations.
And what was it prior to the Baldwin School?
It was NOT built as a school building in the early 20th century. It was likely a warehouse of some sort.
Lincoln Center has Juilliard, NYC Ballet, Metropolitan Opera, NY Philharmonic, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Vivian Beaumont Theater and perhaps two or three other organizations within its umbrella of performing arts institutions. Might the space at the former Calhoun Lower School allow Lincoln Center a new venue to house its business/management functions, i.e. law, accounting, development, HR, PR and communications, et al. slightly off-site from the main campus? This might allow some if not all of the Lincoln Center buildings (for all the constant construction and refurbishment that continues over the decades) to find additional performance and rehearsal space for their faculty, students, musicians, dancers, actors, singers while the staff that serves them has their own space eight-ten blocks away. Maybe they all wouldn’t fit on 74th Street….it’s just a thought.
160 West 74th Street was once the home of De La Salle Institute, a Roman Catholic secondary school run by the Christian Brothers. I went to the school from 1958 until it closed in (I believe) 1961.