Queens' Forte Prep Breaks Ground on New High School in Elmhurst

(Queens, NY) – On Monday, June 17, Forte Preparatory Academy (Forte Prep) celebrated the beginning of construction on its new high school building with a groundbreaking ceremony on a 60,000-square-foot lot at 78-06 Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst, Queens. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards spoke at the event which was attended by Forte Prep students, parents, and staff.

The standalone, six-story facility will be constructed by Apex Development and will open in 2026. Designed with the student experience in mind, the building will feature a full-size basketball court, a 3,000-square-foot cafeteria and multipurpose room; a media center and library; science labs; art and music specialty rooms; and a rooftop terrace for outdoor gardens, recess, and staff lounge areas.

Forte Prep, which has operated as a middle school in Elmhurst (51-35 Reader Street) since its founding in 2017, launched its high school in 2023 at a temporary space in Glendale, Queens. The high school will move to the new Elmhurst building in 2026. The new building will help unify Fort Prep’s middle and high schools, with their proximity on Queens Boulevard allowing more opportunities for the two campuses to share resources and work together.

“This represents an opportunity for the vision of our program and our facility to be in sync with one another,” said Graham Browne, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Fort Preparatory Academy. “Just like our long-term home at Reeder Street, the Queens Boulevard High School will serve as a beacon for the potential and promise of public education in our corner of Queens. I’m so excited to be able to deliver our long-term high school home to our current Forte Prep freshmen who will complete their high school journey in the new building.”

“This is a grand undertaking,” Browne added. “It’s not easy to get to this point, with all the work that goes into developing and designing and building, not to mention negotiating a lease, and so I’d like to thank Forte Prep’s Senior Leadership Team, our legal team, architects, funders and consultants in helping to get us to this point.”

Forte Prep is a tuition-free middle school and high school Queens, New York. We are driven by a philosophy of achieving excellence in all facets of life and learning. We believe in the power of education to transform the lives of students from diverse, often disadvantaged, backgrounds. Through rigorous academics, creative and technological enrichment, and leadership development, we prepare our students to excel at college preparatory high schools and beyond.