Shelter Owner Files Plans For New School On Queens Boulevard

ELMHURST, QUEENS — The owner of a hotel-turned-shelter on Queens Boulevard has filed plans to build a school next door to it, city records show.

David Levitan, who co-owns the real estate firm Liberty One Group, filed papers with the city's buildings department on Nov. 22 to build the four-story school at 79-20 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst, next to the homeless shelter that occupies the former Pan American hotel.

The school would include 18 classrooms, four science labs, a block/shop room, fine art and music rooms, a cafeteria, a library, a teacher's lounge, a nurse's office and a rooftop play area, according to building department records first reported by the Jackson Heights Post.

Kevin Ortiz, a spokesperson for the NYC School Construction Authority, told Patch the agency is not involved in building in the project.

The city comptroller's office approved the Pan Am hotel as a permanent shelter site in 2016, according to the Jackson Heights Post.

Levitan's Liberty One Group is among the city's top private homeless shelter owners, an analysis by The Real Deal found.

In 2014, Levitan paid more than $23 million for the Pan Am hotel site, the Jackson Heights Post reported; he bought three sites next to the hotel for a total of $3.75 million a few months later.