By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BAY RIDGE – As parents are busy buying new clothes and supplies for their children with school bells getting ready to ring in three weeks for another school year, the city is busy looking at a site to construct a new public elementary school in Bay Ridge.

It’s a real-life exercise in the mathematics of the ever-increasing school population. School District 20 faces a rising need to find more space suitable for the influx of a rapidly growing student population. That adds up to a new school for the community, according to School District 20, which recently discussed city School Construction Authority (SCA) plans at a community meeting.

The SCA is “moving ahead� with first doing environmental and feasibility studies at a site on the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and 89th Street, the site of a car wash and auto car stereo business that closed a year ago.

Laurie Windsor, president of School District 20’s Community Education Council (CEC), confirmed that the SCA is eyeing the vacant site. The site is across the street from a 7/11 food store, a car dealership, and the School District 20 headquarters building on 89th Street that also houses the kindergarten classes of P.S. 104 and P.S. 185 as an annex.

The city’s Department of Education has publicly confirmed that the SCA is scouting the site as a possible site for new school construction, but refused to provide further details because the rights to the site are in negotiations with the property owners.

That involves Community Board 10 and its Land Use and Zoning Committee, with a rezoning procedure necessary for the SCA to have access and build on the site. Representatives from the SCA and DOE plan to make a presentation at a public hearing at the Board 10 meeting on Monday, Sept. 15 at 7:15 p.m. at the Shore Hill Community Room, 9000 Shore Road.

The proposed school would serve 437 children from pre-K through fifth grade, Windsor said. It would be four stories high and would have a projected completion date of September 2011, based on the CEC’s discussions with the SCA.

New families with more children are coming to the nearby Fort Hamilton Army Base, requiring more classroom space that neighboring schools, such as P.S. 104 on Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, can no longer handle.

The broker-agent for the site’s property owners is 14 Apollo Associates, with mortgage broker Basil Capetanakis, a Bay Ridge business and civic leader, handling the sale. A 14 Apollo “For Lease� drapes the “Car Wash� lettering facing Fourth Avenue. The property owners, he said, are looking at several options for the site before a decision is reached.

The SCA previously set its sights on a property on Fifth Avenue between 91st and 92nd streets, directly across from P.S. 104. The agency, however, met resistance from local businesses on the block. The businesses were not at all opposed to the concept for the need for new schools, but were reluctant to give up their business space for them.

Then, the SCA turned its attention to the former car wash site as a possible location.

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