Community Seeks School in New Building Plan ISeventeen days after the first high school for Lower Manhattan kids opened its doors at 75 Broad Street, a Community Board 1 committee voted to push for another new school Downtown, this time a combined elementary and middle school on Beekman Street, next to NYU Downtown Hospital. CB1 played a central role in the founding of the Millennium High School as well as its siting in a Broad Street office building after one year on the Upper East Side. Now a resolution by CB1’s Youth and Education Committee, to be voted on this month by the full board, calls on NYU Downtown Hospital to make a school part of any residential building that goes up on a hospital-owned parking lot next door. A hospital spokeswoman said only that the hospital will “seriously consider any request or suggestion from the community.” She would not comment on current negotiations over the site. According to Paul Goldstein, the board’s district manager, the land is an urban renewal site, with height limits that will expire next year, adding considerable value to the property. It is also likely that a potential developer will be eager to begin a project next year to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for tax-free Liberty Bonds. “We think the opportunity is there and we need to grab it,” said Goldstein, adding that a school would go a long way toward placating a community that is not “thrilled” with the prospect of an apartment tower on the site. The resolution calls for a 100,000-square-foot school for 800 to 850 students, about the size of P.S./I.S. 89 in Battery Park City. While some on the committee argued against a combined “P.S./I.S.” on the site, CB1 chairwoman Madelyn Wils disagreed. “We’re overcrowded in both areas,” she said. A new elementary school on the east side would potentially take pressure off P.S. 234, which principal Sandy Bridges last month said is over capacity. The community board estimates that the school will cost $40 million to $50 million. It is unclear how the money would be raised, but CB1 hopes that the school will be on a soon-to-be-released list of projects to be undertaken by the city’s School Construction Authority. With the magnitude of school overcrowding in the city, it will be a challenge for the board to make its case. But CB1 has repeatedly argued that the Bloomberg administration cannot encourage residential development Downtown without providing schools and other services as well. “The city has to step up to the plate here,” Wils said.