Rye Country Day School has finalized its plans for a major campus redevelopment, three years after the school obtained the long-coveted New York State Thruway property across Boston Post Road.
The proposal, which was first brought before the Rye Planning Commission this summer, outlines the private school’s plan to construct a new academic building on the southwest parking lot, improve its squash courts, renovate campus buildings, and more.
But the biggest component is transforming the vacant former Thruway-owned property east of the school into a massive sports complex, offering field space — something advocates say the school and even the city are in desperate need of.
Kayla Erickson, a rising senior at Rye Country Day and a track athlete, told The Record it’s common practice to share fields. As far as outdoor recreation space goes, Rye Country Day – a K-12 school – currently has one softball and one baseball diamond with a shared outfield, one football field, and another multipurpose field.
“We were doing our warm up laps around the field and we were sharing a field with boys lacrosse,” Erickson recalled, “and we had to dodge the lacrosse balls while they were warming up.”
When no field space is available, Erickson said her team has to travel to practice, oftentimes just barely squeezing in 90 minutes at places like Memorial Field in Mount Vernon. Although she’ll graduate well before the old Thruway property is developed, she said she’s excited about the plan, noting that it might entice more students to join sports teams.
“I feel like if there was a designated space on campus, where you wouldn’t have that much of a time commitment on the bus, like there and back half of the week, I think it could lead to increased participation,” she said.
Aerial photo courtesy Rye Country Day School
Rye Country Day plans to move its existing hockey rink onto the 9-acre Thruway site, according to the proposal, as well as lay down a new multipurpose artificial turf field. The project also calls for the construction of a new field house equipped with an indoor track containing a “flexible interior space” – to be used either as three multipurpose practice courts or one larger field.
The school also wants to add a parking lot next to the new field house.
And connecting the new sports complex to the rest of the school? A tunnel underneath Boston Post Road, which the school says is crucial “to enable safe travel through campus.” The stretch of Boston Post Road that borders the school — near the municipal line with Port Chester — is a four-lane roadway divided by a grassy median, with no pedestrian crosswalk.
The former Thruway site has a storied history in Rye, beginning in 1958 when New York state took land on the southern end of the Rye Country Day campus to build I-95. The state paid $67,500 for the land via eminent domain, according to the school.
After the interstate was completed, and later when other roadways were modified, the construction left a 9-acre oval-shaped parcel of land across from the school, nestled between Boston Post Road to the west, and the I-287 to I-95 connector on the east.
That land parcel has long been eyed by the city of Rye, Rye Country Day, and state officials.
According to state Assemblyman Steve Otis, a former Rye mayor, the Thruway Authority originally proposed using the site as a storage location for trucks, equipment, and even road salt. But the city pushed back, citing its desire to instead turn it into recreational space.
After the city’s many failed bids at acquiring the property through a lease, the Thruway Authority decided to sell it at auction around 2015. That’s when Otis, a Democrat, petitioned to make it available only to the city for recreational purposes.
But Josh Cohn, who was running his first mayoral campaign around the time the state announced it would sell the property at auction, felt buying the parcel would be financially irresponsible.
“I did not believe the city had the financial ability to acquire and develop the Thruway property,” Mayor Cohn told The Record, noting that he had “differences with Rye Country Day School and Assemblyman Otis” at the time.
But Cohn said those differences are long gone.
“That is now in the past,” he said. “I am hopeful that the relationship between the city and RCDS, an important member of the Rye community, will only grow stronger.”
Photo courtesy Rye Planning Commission
The city never committed to purchasing the property over budgetary concerns.
“That’s when we then pivoted to doing legislation that would allow the Thruway Authority to sell the property to the [Rye Country Day] school,” Otis said.
That legislation, which Otis sponsored, passed through the state Legislature in 2019. Three years later in 2022, the Thruway Authority voted to approve the sale to Rye Country Day for $5.16 million.
Part of the 2019 legislation stipulates that Rye Country Day must make its new athletic facilities available for public rental. Specifically, the school must make the newly proposed field, track, and ice rink available for public use 29% of the available hours.
Josh Nathan, this year’s Democrat mayoral candidate, told The Record he’s a proponent of turning the parcel into field space, but emphasized the need to scrutinize neighborhood impact of the development.
“The addition of capacity by using what has been a dead space between highways is very exciting,” said Nathan, adding he’s spoken with Rye Country Day Head of Schools Randall Dunn and his colleagues, who have reiterated their commitment to making space available for other athletic programming.
Mayoral candidates Bill Henderson, a Republican, and Rick McCabe, an independent, could not be reached for comment.
Otis, who represents multiple communities along the Sound Shore, said recreation space is a need all over his district.
“The community benefit of this project is going to be multifaceted,” he said. “I think it’s an important addition and I’m glad to see there is progress being made.”
Rye Planning Commission Chair Nick Everett wouldn’t comment on the project itself, but he did say it’ll likely take a lot of time before the school actually breaks ground.
Mayor Cohn, who isn’t seeking reelection this year, agreed the proposal is an ambitious one.
“The plan, now before the Planning Commission, is ambitious and as such will obviously implicate a variety of city concerns,” he said. “I am looking forward to [the] school and city working through the many details.”
The project will likely only need City Council approval if rezoning is required.
Avery Gershwin contributed to this report.
