A cleared lot on 43rd Avenue is now ready for the construction of PS508Q, a 550-student school, part of the city’s belated response to years of population growth in Hunters Point and LIC.
Hunters Point and Long Island City’s population grew nearly 50 times faster than the city as a whole between 2013 and 2023. PS508Q, a new elementary school now cleared for construction on 43rd Avenue, is one of the city’s answers to that growth.
Demolition finished this month at 23-10 43rd Avenue, clearing a former five-story office building for a six-story, 90,000-square-foot school designed by ESKW/Architects for the NYC School Construction Authority. The building will hold roughly 550 students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, along with a citywide District 75 program for students with significant disabilities.
At the May CEC 30 meeting, it was proposed that the system will open a new school with Kindergarten (P.S. 439Q, 30Q439) in the 2026-2027 school year in an unoccupied Pre-K Center (Q346: 11-11 40th Ave) and then re-site it to Court Square, where it would be co-located with District 75 in the 2028-2029 school year.
A note on names:
SCA capital plan documents track new schools by building number before they open — e.g. Q508 is the building, not the school. Once a school is assigned to open there, it gets its own DBN (District-Borough-Number), like 30Q439: the first two digits are the school district (30), the letter is the borough (Q for Queens), and the last three digits identify the specific school. A single building can house more than one school, each with its own DBN, which is why building number and school number aren’t interchangeable. Also, to be more confusing, a specific school could be split across multiple buildings, like PS78 and in the near-future PS384.
CB2’s Land Use Committee record puts the opening no earlier than September 2028. The School Construction Authority has confirmed September 2028 as the anticipated opening, per its published capital plan and a presentation to CEC 30. 1
Place Profile
This school is still under construction: follow every update as PS508Q moves toward its 2028 opening.
Correction — July 21, 2026
A previous version of this article stated that the SCA had not publicly confirmed a timeline for the new school at 23-10 43rd Avenue. The SCA has in fact confirmed September 2028 as the anticipated opening, as published in its capital plan and presented at CEC 30 meetings. The article has been updated to reflect this.
We regret the error.
