Three years ago during Hurricane Sandy, flooding ravaged the Madeleine Jones Head Start Center on Neptune Avenue in Coney Island, and its owners, Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, began their search for a new location and a new building to house their daycare center.
Now, YIMBY has the first look at Dattner Architects’ design for the unique project, which will rise at 2856 West 15th Street between Neptune and Mermaid Avenues, only a block from the Stillwell Avenue subway station.
2856 West 15th Street, rendering by Dattner Architects
The cantilevered building would be elevated above the flood plain and incorporate a series of stepped green roofs. They enable “outdoor gardens, learning spaces, and play areas for each age group,” Dattner explains on their website. Renderings show that the three-story project will feature five levels of green space, solar panels and big walls of windows on the upper floors.
2856 West 15th Street, rendering by Dattner Architects
When it’s finished, the Montessori school will include 16,731 square feet of community facility space and rise 53 feet into the air, according to a plan exam application disapproved in April. A commercial kitchen, multipurpose room and offices will take up the first floor, and the second and third floors will have more offices and classrooms.
The new preschool will offer pre-K education to 75 local kids, and is meant to symbolize both neighborhood revitalization and “to foster the social, emotional, physical and cognitive development of preschoolers,” according to Dattner.
Construction is expected to wrap in 2016.
Catholic Charities picked up the 9,500-square-foot property from a neighborhood church for only $910,000 in December 2014, according to public records.
As Coney Island has rebuilt over the last two and a half years, development has finally begun to rebound in the neighborhood close to Luna Park and the New York Aquarium. The last month has brought three new filings within two blocks of the Stillwell Avenue D/F/N/Q stop, including a an eight-story mixed-use building around the corner from the planned Head Start Center and a medical building on Stillwell Avenue.
2856 West 15th Street, rendering by Dattner Architects
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
Where would you go to fill out an application to work at this location