The future of a posh Manhattan preschool is in question after it failed to open its doors last week, and the uncertainty has prompted some 80 families to take their children elsewhere.
The Park Avenue Christian Church Day School — which quietly moved from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side — insists it’ll open as soon as it gets city permits for its new location on West 76th Street.
But parents are fuming about the stealth move, as well as a secret development deal for the old school building. Even the school director says she was in the dark.
The deal with Extell Development Corp. dates to May 2012 but didn’t come to light until the Park Avenue Christian Church, which runs the nonsectarian school, submitted a permit application to the city on Aug. 9. The application calls for a $50 million, 16-story residential tower at 1010 Park Ave.
The filing came days after a deadline for the preschool’s parents to pay 85 percent of $20,000 yearly tuition.
The Rev. Alvin O’Neal Jackson, senior pastor of the church, did not officially tell parents of the church’s plan until Aug. 19.
“The decision to develop our property is based entirely on the survival of the Park Avenue Christian Church,” he wrote to them.
Jackson promised refunds, as well as discounts for parents who wanted to stay at the school, where Woody Allen, Bobby Flay and Lisa Kudrow have sent their tots.
But one Upper East Side mother said she lost faith in church leadership and scrambled to find another school for her 3-year-old.
“If it weren’t subject to these people who have at their heart only the interest of making tens of millions . . . we would have kept our son there,” she said.
She said that when she called the church this month to ask about her refund, she was told “they don’t have the money [and] they don’t know when they’ll have the money.”
Fourteen families got their money back, and the rest will receive refunds by November, said George Arzt, a church spokesman.
He said the church signed a five-year lease for space on West 76th Street and would be able to sustain itself despite the exodus of children, with many new parents calling to apply.
The Extell deal was kept from the school until a congregational vote was taken at the church, Arzt said.
About 200 families worship at the church on non-summer Sundays.
The school, which had about 200 children, had operated at a yearly profit of about $1 million a year, said a parent familiar with its finances.
In 2011, church members and parents began exploring whether the school should separate itself and run independently.
In September 2012, Jackson said the church wanted $5 million from parents to spin off the school, never disclosing a development deal was in the works, the parent said.
The church abruptly ended the spin-off talks in March 2013.