New York Harbor School 110k SF, $140M Expansion Advances on Governors Island

• SCA's 110,000-square-foot addition will double the Harbor School's campus from two buildings to four.
• Crews are framing the façade over a teal waterproof membrane after the structure topped out last September.
• The $140 million building, designed by Ciardullo Architecture & Engineering, rises on the existing 550 Short Ave campus and is tracking toward a March 2027 delivery.
• A separate $31 million renovation of the 88-year-old Building 555 annex adds 32,000 square feet of classrooms for 480 incoming students this September.

The build

The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, the city's only maritime-focused public high school, is getting its first new building since arriving on Governors Island in 2010. The School Construction Authority broke ground on the 110,000-square-foot facility in November 2024, and it topped out by last September. Workers are now installing the framing for a façade of white, wave-patterned paneling around irregular window openings, with earth-toned cladding and a two-tiered terrace on the rear elevation. Inside, the building holds a competition-sized pool, a gymnasium, and laboratories built for the school's marine and environmental curriculum. The project sits between Center Way and Craig Road North, just south of the school's existing buildings at 550 Short Ave, and carries a $140 million price tag, or roughly $1,270 per square foot.

Why the price jumped

When Mayor Eric Adams first detailed the expansion in 2022, the two-phase plan, the new athletic and lab building plus the Building 555 classroom renovation, carried a combined estimate of about $80 million. That figure has nearly doubled to $140 million for the new building alone since the SCA broke ground. The expansion is also central to the city's "Harbor of the Future" push to position Governors Island as a green-economy hub, anchored nearby by the $700 million New York Climate Exchange now under construction for a 2028 opening. SCA President and CEO Nina Kubota said the expansion will enable the school to serve even more students as part of the buildout.

What's next

The Building 555 annex, a converted 1938 Army barracks inside the Governors Island Historic District, is set to open for the September semester with room for 480 additional students. The new 110,000-square-foot building is scheduled to open in March 2027, as part of a broader push to grow the Harbor School's enrollment toward 1,000 students by 2030.