After waiting for years for a home of their own, the 183 students of the Hudson School will move around the corner to a new 17,000 square-foot building this fall.
The private school broke ground last week at the new site on the corner of Sixth and Park Avenue and plans to complete the project by the end of September.
School founder Suellen Newman said that while the school is extremely optimistic about the project, the school still needs to raise more funds. The school will also have to be mindful of building concerns expressed by residents.
Waiting 22 years
The school was founded by Hoboken resident Suellen Newman in 1978. The school has always shared space with the Hoboken Library, but because of its popularity and the fact that its lease expires on June 30 of this year, the school has been raising funds and searching for new facilities.
“I am so thankful to the community and everyone who has given so much,” Newman said last week. “But we still have a ways to go.”
According to Newman, for the building to be finished, the school needed to raise in excess of $3.5 million, and as of right now they are $400,000 short of that target. “[$400,000] is the low water mark for the completion of the building,” said Sam Reckford, the president of the Board of Trustees. “We would really like to raise $1million more, but we are completely confident that we can raise the need money to finish the building.”
Another concern the school has is the fact that its lease with the city is going to expire later this summer. “It is possible that we may have to workout arrangements with the city to stay a couple of extra months,” said Reckford. “While I am sure we can work something out that is the last thing we want to do.”
The building
The lot that the building will occupy has quite a bit of historic significance. It was home to one of Hoboken’s first schools, the Martha Institute, which was built in 1866. The Hudson School first planned to save the existing building, but after several studies, it was determined that the costs would be so large that attempts to save the building would be cost prohibitive.
After much discussion, the school decided to demolish the building, something that upset local historians. As a compromise, they designed plans for the new building in the image of the old Martha Institute.
The new building will allow the school to combine the middle and high school into one building. It will also provide all-purpose space for community performing arts groups and will greatly upgrade on-site performing and visual arts and sports facilities, according to Reckford.
Neighborhood concerns
But there are some neighbors who do not think that the construction of this building is being undertaken in a way that is the most sensitive to the neighborhood.
“I don’t want to ask them to stop building or even to change the plan,” said neighbor and member of the Hoboken Preservation Society John DePalma last week. “I just want them to do what they said they would do.”
DePalma was referring to the way in which the engineers plan to drive 95 pilings into the ground. In their original report to the Planning Board, Hoboken architect Dean Marchetto said that the construction would include the pre-drilling of holes into the ground before the pilings were dropped into the earth. But when the final resolution was passed to approve the construction, there were no conditions on how the pilings should be driven. DePalma said that to just pound the pilings into the ground could be dangerous to neighboring structures.
“They are getting off on a technicality,” said DePalma. He said that there are several historic buildings within just a couple of feet that could be in danger.
Peter Dougherty, a construction manager for York Hunter Construction Management and the overseer of the project, said the company is being responsible to the neighbors and buildings around the site. “We are taking every possible precaution,” said Dougherty Thursday.
He added that there is no advantage to the pre-drilling of holes and that the company took the extra steps of hiring Empire Consulting to conduct a survey of nearby buildings to determine how the construction would impact them. He said the company also will have someone on hand to monitor vibrations.
Dougherty said the foundation has been excavated and cleared so that the pilings will not strike any foreign objects. “The worst is already behind us,” said Dougherty, who said that digging into the concrete and removing rocks was the more destructive part of the construction.