Cypress Hills Ascend Middle School is Officially Ready for Students
Last week, Cypress Hills Ascend Middle School (CHAMS), part of the Ascend Public Charter School network, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new facility in the redeveloped Empire State Dairy Company Building, a landmark-designated property on Atlantic Avenue in East New York.
Designed by Dattner Architects and developed by The Moinian Group and Bushburg, the redevelopment of the century-old property involved the partial gutting of the existing historic building to support a 14-story tower with 320 residential units, 12,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, and the new charter school for Ascend.
DBI served as Ascend’s owner’s representative on the project and made sure all project partners were completing tasks on budget and on schedule to enable the school’s opening for the 2024-2025 school year. With a complex project of this kind, many challenges were present and DBI is proud to have led all stakeholders to a successful outcome.
Some key highlights of the project include an impressive new library, the largest of any school in the Ascend network, and a hybrid architectural model that thoughtfully blends the building’s historic elements with the school’s more modern design, cultivated by MBB Architects, the school project’s design partner. With a total footprint of just over 50,000 square feet, Cypress Hill Ascend Middle will accommodate 480 students and serve grades 5-8.
Since 2022, DBI has overseen the construction of two new facilities for Ascend, comprising nearly 100,000 square feet of new educational space for the growing charter school. DBI is considered the foremost leader in educational real estate in New York City, Cypress Hill Ascend Middle School is just one of the $3 Billion in active school projects the firm has under management.
