Forte Prep Academy is building a brand new High School in Queens! Come with us for a look inside!
On December 22, 2025, Forte Prep Academy Founder and CEO, Graham Browne, invited us to the new Forte Preparatory Academy High School building, currently in the final stages of construction on Queens Boulevard.
We joined him on a walk through the building, and he spoke with us about the new classrooms, gymnasium, art and music studios and more. It’s an exciting, “Insider’s Look” at the future home of Forte Prep High School!
We’ll be releasing a new video segment of the story each week- we hope you’ll tune in!
Building the Future
Every year, since Forte Prep opened our Middle School in 2017, we've helped set our students on a path to success. Our dedicated faculty creates and sustains a culture of excellence — embracing a unified and collaborative approach to every level of education, with a focus on academic success for every student, every day. We equip our students to excel, fundamentally redirecting their academic and personal trajectories towards successful careers and lives that enrich their communities through leadership and creativity.
Based on this success, and the need for more high quality education options in our community, we opened Forte Prep High School in 2023. When we received approval and funding to expand our educational program offerings to grades 9-12, we found a temporary school site for the first year students and began planning a permanent home for the high school in the same community as our middle school.
Once we found a space to build, our vision and reality came together and things moved quickly — from signing a lease in December 2023, to breaking ground in July 2024, to our planned completion of the building in May 2026; just in time to start our first full high school cohort in the new building for the 2026-27 school year. We are excited to offer our students the safe, inspiring, and fully equipped learning environment they deserve.
We are grateful that our construction partners, Apex Development Group and Knickpoint Ventures, trust in our success, believe in our planned growth and support our future. Together, they raised a construction loan from the Low Income Investment Fund, Enterprise Community Partners and Reinvestment Fund. All our new building construction costs were covered by these funds, and Forte’s lease payments on the building are fully covered by NYC Rental Assistance.
Forte’s primary financial obligation now is to ensure that what goes inside the building reflects the strength, creativity, and determination of the students who will fill it, and supports our world-class education model and the ambitious construction that will house it.
The new Forte Prep High School, located at 78-02 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst is an intelligently designed 60,000 square foot, 6 story tall building, open to natural light and outfitted with over 25 classrooms and 10 offices, spacious music and art studios, innovative science labs, a maple-floored full size gymnasium court and a rooftop athletic field, a senior career and college hub and a robust library and modern media center. It is located less than half a mile from the middle school, a quick 10 minute walk between the schools and easily accessible by our established school community.
Our new Forte Preparatory High School building, opening in the Fall of 2026, will become home to our current 9th-12th grade cohort, bringing them back to their neighborhood and together under one roof after three years of attending Forte Prep High School classes in two temporary locations.
It will also be a new home for events and sports for our broader community - we aim to open our gymnasium and rooftop athletic field to local classes and events, grounding the new Forte Prep High School as a true community partner in our neighborhood.