Call it the Big Apple’s most expensive classroom.
The city Department of Education spent more than a half-million dollars to move a portable classroom about 4½ miles from one Brooklyn school to another, The Post has learned.
Administrators at the School Construction Authority awarded the contract last June to move a “temporary classroom unit” for 60 students from PS 230 on Albemarle Road in Kensington to PS 261 on Pacific Street in Boerum Hill.
Officials at the SCA, now part of the Education Department, had anticipated spending no more than $200,000 to move the facility – but the lowest bid for moving and installation costs was $529,000.
“I think it’s an appalling waste of money,” said Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn).
Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg told The Post that the $529,000 cost also included some installation work.
Also “the schedule was accelerated so all work could be performed during a five-week period in the summer,” she said.
SCA documents obtained by The Post show that the contract was not advertised but sent to six prequalified firms.
Queens-based Kafka Construction Corp. offered the lowest of three bids and won the contract. Whitestone Construction bid $650,000, and E.C.I. Building Corp. came in at $1.1 million.
“Their explanation is that this was the lowest bid they got,” Yassky said.
“Then they are not soliciting bids widely enough. This is something that should cost $150,000 to do, if that. Instead, it cost half a million.”