$38m school opening heralds start of new era.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein joined the Abyssinian Development Corporation and New Visions for Public Schools to announce the opening of the new home of the Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem last week.

The $38 million state-of-the-art facility, located at the corner of 135th Street and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd., is the first new high school to be built in Harlem in more than 50 years.

The Department of Education's $13.1 billion capital plan is the biggest in the city's history and includes building 90 new schools with 66,000 classroom seats over the next five years.

The school construction process has been reformed and DOE is now able to build better-quality schools faster, and at less cost.

The most recent bid received on a school construction job, PS 12 in Queens, came in at $311 per square foot--roughly 30% below the average low bids of the seven previous schools built before the construction process was improved. The state of the art Thurgood Marshall Academy was designed by Gruzen and took 21 months to construct. It houses 17 regular classrooms, 3 science demo rooms, 2 science labs, a full gymnasium, a distance learning classroom, a music room, a library, and a high tech computer lab.

The school building will also house The Time Warner Library Media Center, and an on-site, school-based clinic (through Columbia Presbyterian) that will provide medical, dental and social services to Thurgood Marshall Academy students and their families.