Roughly 20 planned early childhood education centers in the Big Apple mysteriously sit idle as demand surges for universal pre-K and 3K seats close to home, The Post has learned.
More than 25 of 47 3K “initiative projects” at sites first earmarked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio are still unlisted on the official NYC MySchools directory — despite costly construction contracts, rent payments to private owners and official Department of Education signage posted outside some “phantom” schools.
The list of leased shell sites includes a converted Brooklyn warehouse on the Columbia Street waterfront — where nearby young families face waitlists of more than 100 students for a nearby seat, parents told The Post.
“There’s not a lot of seats to go around,” fumed Brooklyn parent Zach Hetrick, who lived on the same block as the Columbia Street waterfront site when his daughter would’ve been eligible.
Without the center, the father-daughter duo must trek to another city-run site over a mile away on foot, or a 15-minute bus ride “if it comes on time.”
Though the 3K location was first slated for completion in 2023 — and later underwent more than $1 million in construction work in 2024 for a “proposed” 3K center, with a total estimated cost of $18 million — the site is still being “evaluated for potential use,” the DOE told The Post in a statement.
“If we’re paying for the school to be built and it already exists, it’d be great to be using that school,” Hetrick said.
“Ultimately, I think we should be using the resources we’re already paying for.”
The news comes after a Post investigation revealed a city-run site on the Upper East Side set to open in 2024 had been sitting empty, angering parents — and prompted Mayor Zohran Mamdani to open the site just three weeks later.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a longtime Upper East Side rep, said the opening of the center had been a “long time coming.” She noted a staggering 853 early child care centers closed in recent years, while demand for free programs has skyrocketed — which can otherwise cost parents tens of thousands of dollars a year through private providers.
“I can’t tell you the number of parents that have said to us, ‘if we do not get affordable child care, we’re going to leave the city,’” Menin said last month during the opening of the new preschool on the Upper East Side.
“At the end of the day, this is what we need to do citywide — to open up more child-care facilities, to make sure that every single parent that needs a slot for 3-K and pre-K has it.”
The city spent $787 million from FY2020 to FY2024 on early education initiatives, including for the creation of classrooms in existing buildings and new locations, according to the DOE’s five-year capital plan report released last August.
Still, nearly two dozen of the 3K expansion sites were built but left sitting empty for years after they were set to be finished, DOE reps said at a City Council education committee hearing last year.
“I believe there’s about 21 of those sitting vacant,” DOE early childhood education rep Jeff Klein said at the time, adding the city was working with the Department of Buildings and health department to “ensure that these can be still viable, because if time has passed and they’re sitting vacant, they need to be up to all appropriate codes.”
“We have a need for seats in our community, and we look at a mothballed site in a private building that we put a bunch of money into the capital repairs, and then we’re paying rent,” North Brooklyn councilman Lincoln Restler said at the meeting.
“That is infuriating.”
One planned 3K site at 18-31 131 St. in College Point, Queens, a former warehouse set to seat 165 students, underwent a full renovation and brand-new outdoor play area after the city entered into a five-year lease for the building in 2021. But it sits empty, despite an anticipated 2022 opening.
The DOE also shelled out roughly $200,000 for lighting work alone at a three-floor site at 1010 Third Ave. on the Upper East Side, city permits show. Despite the permits on Third Avenue showing work for “3K lighting,” the DOE told The Post the site’s future has not yet been determined.
Other planned 3K and Pre-K sites included in last year’s DOE report appear to have become something else entirely – including a DOE Family Welcome Center on Staten Island, and charter elementary schools for Success Academy Ridgewood and Zeta Charter Schools in Jamaica, Queens.
A proposed 3K center at 11-11 40th Ave. in Long Island City, Queens, is now listed as the address of the “temporary” site of a new elementary school, the Academy of Cultural Excellence PS 439Q. It’s supposed to open this September before it moves to a permanent location.
Council Member Gale Brewer even told The Post the city has shelled out a whopping $24,000 a month in rent — and an estimated total cost of about $22 million — on one site in her district that sat vacant for years.
The planned three-floor 3K center at 1972 Broadway on the Upper West Side was allegedly unknown to the DOE before she notified the agency, the councilwoman said — as the School Construction Authority never told the DOE about all of these centers.
“It was the de Blasio administration that planned all of these child care centers,” she added, “but I [was the one who] told the Adams administration.”
Though the 3K was initially set to be completed in September 2023, per planning documents, one floor of the building finally opened to special needs preschool students in 2025.
The local district is finally “working to fill the other floors with 4 Pre-K classes and 4 3-K classes as an annex for PS 452,” a rep for Brewer confirmed.
When asked about the mystery sites, City Hall rep Jenna Lyle told The Post the new administration is working to evaluate the longstanding phantom sites — and some may finally see the light.
“For years, early childhood programs were slashed and sidelined by the prior administration, despite community need, leaving many of these buildings to sit empty,” Lyle said.
“That is changing under this administration. We are taking a close look at the areas around all vacant buildings and assessing early childhood seat need.”
Additional reporting by Peter Senzamici
