By Jonathan Custodio, The City

September 4, 2025

The City University of New York’s Hostos Community College will soon be delivering students to the long-abandoned post office building next door.

Find out what’s happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Mayor Eric Adams and CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez announced on Wednesday afternoon that the university will lease the historic Bronx Post Office building on East 149th Street and Grand Concourse for an expansion of its allied health and natural sciences departments.

Mayor Eric Adams and CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez celebrate Hostos Community College taking over a historic shuttered post office along the Grand Concourse in the South Bronx, Sept. 3, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

Find out what’s happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

More than a hundred CUNY staffers, students, elected officials and union construction workers from Laborers Local 79 gathered at the post office at 558 Grand Concourse to celebrate the coming facility that would increase capacity for programs like nursing, surgical technology, occupational therapy and home health care.

Hostos graduated approximately 2,500 students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health programs this year, said the chancellor. The redevelopment, a block away from Hostos and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, would allow the South Bronx community college to double its number of graduates.

“Now we will deliver, not mail, but we will deliver thousands of jobs to Bronxites and other people in this city,” said Adams. “This is the feeder that’s going to build an entire economic stimulus for this entire area. Why the hell did this post office remain vacant all this time? It would not have remained vacant in central Manhattan, but people wanted to ignore this borough.”

CUNY agreed to a 35-year lease with real estate firm Maddd Equities, which bought the property in July for $44 million. The university will pay $15.5 million the first year of that lease, with an annual escalation of 3%, according to a contract approved by its board of trustees in a special meeting last month.

The university has an option to buy the property outright during the first five years of the lease “at a fixed five percent (5.0%) capitalization rate on the next future years’ net operating income,” according to the contract.

Maddd Equities, which is also leading the long-awaited re-development of the Kingsbridge Armory four miles to the north, is responsible for all elements of construction ensuring that the facility is ready for a planned unveiling in the fall of 2028.

‘What’s Best’

A budget shortfall led the United States Postal Service to propose shuttering 17 post offices in The Bronx in 2012, a year after it moved all Bronx mail processing operations to Manhattan. In 2014, the postal service sold the 175,000-square-foot building, which occupies a full block, for $19 million to Youngwoo & Associates which had hoped to establish a food hall, office space and storefronts inside.

Constructed in 1937, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the exterior of the building as a landmark in 1975 and its interior as one in 2013. The building was designed by Thomas Harlan Ellet, who once served as consulting architect for the U.S. Department of Treasury between 1934 and 1936.

“The most prominent features of the building are the graceful window openings set within marble arches which contrast handsomely with the smooth gray brick walls,” LPC officials wrote in 1976, noting that the two sculptures in front of the building, including one portraying a mother receiving a message from her child, “add further interest.” Inside the building are murals that celebrate America’s workers building homes, weaving clothes, laboring in factories and tilling farmland.

Hostos Community College planned to take over a historic post office along the Grand Concourse, Sept. 3, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

Currently, the building houses a post office, while restaurant Zona de Cuba, owned by businessman and former mayoral candidate Fernando Mateo, is located on the roof of the building.

Hostos spokesperson Ivano Leoncavallo told THE CITY that the post office will retain the customer service location it leases on the north side of the building, where it occupies about 10,000 square feet on the ground floor.

The space occupied by Zona de Cuba will become part of the new Hostos facility, which Mateo welcomed in a phone call with THE CITY on Wednesday.

“What’s best for the youth, what’s best for education, what’s best for the city is what’s best for me. I’m all for it,” said Mateo, who noted his lease was not expiring but declined to provide further details.

“This is a great move and great decision.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.