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In 2024, the West Side Montessori School committed to three decades at the base of the Dahlia, a 20-story condominium on West 95th Street that had been open four years by then. Its broker called the deal a two-year slog to get done. Whether the school ever actually moved in is now an open question.
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What is on the record is this: two years later, it has bought the space outright.West Side Montessori has paid $11.4 million for ground-floor commercial condominium space at 212 West 95th St., between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, buying from United Management — the developer of the Dahlia, the 20-story condominium that houses it. The deal closed on July 30, the very same day it went into contract, and the deed was recorded Aug. 24.
The school financed the move with $16 million in tax-free bond financing, enough to cover both the purchase price and the buildout of classrooms, and has also been issued a $2 million credit line by First-Citizens Bank & Trust Co., Crain’s New York Business reported, citing the city register.
The seller entity was 212 West 95 Owner LLC. Arthur Wiener signed for the seller and Loren DeNicola, the school’s head, for the buyer, PincusCo reported from the recorded deed.
In October 2024, the school signed a 30-year lease for 11,400 square feet across three floors at the same building, positioning it as the first retail tenant at the base of the Dahlia, which opened to residents in 2020, Commercial Observer reported at the time.
Getting there had been slow going. “This transaction overcame several challenges in the two years it took to complete,” Neal Ohm of Newmark, who brokered the lease for the school with Michael Cohen, said in a Newmark announcement. Justin DiMare represented the landlord.
The school “appears to have never moved in” under that lease, according to Crain’s. The publication reported that DeNicola did not respond to an interview request before its deadline, and why the plan changed is not publicly explained.
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Private schools in New York have been in a period of upheaval, with closings displacing students and shuffling enrollment, and some institutions have moved into real estate for the first time in decades — both to attract those students and to stop paying rent into an escalating market.For a neighborhood that has watched bookstores, nursery schools and houses of worship priced off their blocks, an institution converting from tenant to owner is a quietly significant piece of news. It also takes the Dahlia’s ground-floor commercial space off the market indefinitely.
Founded in 1963, West Side Montessori is a private nonprofit serving young children. For about half a century it has operated out of a townhouse at 309 West 92nd St., between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, and it has leased space nearby for its youngest students.
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