By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
SOUTH STREET SEAPORT — The city has entered exclusive negotiations with United States Postal Service to create a 400-seat elementary school at the Peck Slip Post Office, the Department of Education said.
The city has been eyeing the property for months and sees it as the best hope of relieving school overcrowding downtown. The Postal Service put the four-story building up for sale last spring, and the city’s School Construction Authority bid on it over the summer.
It appeared last month that the negotiations had stalled, but now the city is in active discussions with the Postal Service, a DOE spokesman said Wednesday. One of the biggest remaining issues is how soon the Postal Service could leave the building, so the city could convert it into a school, the spokesman said.
Paul Goldstein, who directs Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s district office, said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the sale would go through.
"It doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, but it [looks] positive," Goldstein told Community Board 1 Tuesday night, based on his conversations with the parties involved. "We’re excited."
Silver and other politicians had pushed the Postal Service to reach a deal with the city for the 70,800-square-foot building, even if private developers submitted higher bids.
A Postal Service spokeswoman declined to comment.
If the sale goes through, it would take about three years to design and construct the school, the city said earlier this fall. At the urging of the local community, the city plans to keep a small retail post office on the ground floor of the building, which is on Peck Slip between Water and Pearl streets.
Although the new seats would put a dent in downtown’s school overcrowding, the neighborhood will soon need still more elementary seats, Goldstein said.
He cited local parent and business professor Eric Greenleaf’s population projections, which show that the Peck Slip school would be full almost from the day it opened.
"Peck Slip won’t be the final answer, probably," Goldstein said. "But it will be a great step for our community."
