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The city-based Community Governance and Development Council will hold a rally at 2 p.m. Sunday outside School 19, the building it had hoped to transform into a community center.
The gathering comes days after the city opted to award the redevelopment project to Alma Reality, a Long Island City-based group with plans to turn the Jackson Street building into market rent apartments.
“The Free School 19 campaign alongside the community of Southwest Yonkers has worked too hard to bring this vision to fruition to stop now,” CGDC said in an email.
Earlier this year the city released a Request for Proposal for the acquisition and redevelopment of the former School 19, a 97-year-old building that has been abandoned for more than a decade.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Mike Spano said two projects were presented to the city – one by Alma Reality and the other by CGDC, a group of young professionals from southwest Yonkers.
At the time of the projects submission, 25-year-old CGDC executive director LaMont OyeWale' Badru said he hoped to turn the dilapidated school building into a community hub as part of the "Free School 19" campaign.
The four-level facility would have included a neighborhood school, day care center, a community hall and fitness center, multimedia library, study center and community arts space. CGDC's proposal also included plans for a solar greenhouse, new playground and basketball courts.
“I grew up across the street from School 19,” Badru said. “We used to play in the abandoned lot. So we said it would be great if we could acquire it from city and come up with a plan to develop it into an anchor institution for southwest Yonkers.”
This week, however, the CGDC learned city officials decided to go with Alma Reality’s $12 million propsal that will turn the lot into 91-units of apartments.
Spano’s spokeswoman, Christina Gilmartin, said Alma Reality, who previously developed School 13 and owns a co-op building on Highland Avenue, plans to keep and readapt the School 19 building.
In addition, their plans call for an adjacent apartment building to be built along with a parking garage. Construction is expected to begin shortly and be completed within 18 months.
Gilmartin said the city was supportive of the CGDC’s efforts but did not feel their proposal was viable as it had not yet raised the money needed to carry out the plan.
“The mayor worked with them and met with them and is very supportive of what they’re trying to do,” she said. “This particular project just doesn’t seem viable.”
Regardless, the CGDC plans to host a community gathering Sunday and issue a public letter of appeal to city officials, hoping to keep their plan alive.
“We need a community center, not condos,” the CGDC said.
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