Housing Developer Azimuth to Buy Closing Bronx Catholic School for $24M

Housing developer Azimuth Development Group is in contract to buy a Catholic school in the South Bronx for $24 million, according to city records and court records made public last week.

Azimuth, through the entity BMAD Walton, is set to purchase the All Hallows High School at 1000 Walton Avenue from the school, which used the entity All Hallows Institute, records show. The sale is pending and requires legal approval.

Azimuth founder Guido Subotovsky signed the deal for the buyer, while Ronald Schutte, president of the high school, signed for the seller, according to records.

It’s unclear who brokered the deal. Schutte and a spokesperson for Azimuth did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The potential deal comes after the 1909-founded All Hallows — which allowed girls into its classrooms for the first time last year — ran into financial trouble and had until Jan. 16 to come up with $2.5 million to keep its doors open, CBS News reported at the time.

It seems the school was unable to come up with the funds, as it will permanently shutter on June 30, ABC7 reported. If approved by the court, the sale of the school will have a final closing date for July 11, records show.

The sale of All Hallows, which is around the corner from Yankee Stadium and has an alternative address of 111 East 164th Street, requires legal approval because the school is an educational nonprofit, according to Crain’s New York Business, which first reported the news. 

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce this painful and difficult, but necessary and practical, decision,” Brother Patrick Moffett, chair of the school’s board of trustees, told Crain’s. “This decision came after much frank discussion and measured and prayerful deliberation.”

All Hallows isn’t the only Catholic school in New York to shut down in recent years. At the end of the 2021-2022 academic year, the Archdiocese of New York reported 12 closings or mergers of Catholic schools, including the closings of both St. Barnabas and Preston High School in the Bronx, the New York Times reported last month.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not exactly clear what Azimuth plans to do with the four-story All Hallows building, but the developer specializes in affordable and market-rate housing in the outer boroughs, according to its website.

In July 2018, Azimuth secured roughly $107 million in affordable-housing financing from the New York City Housing Development Corporation to construct a new multifamily building on the site of the Bronx Pentecostal Deliverance Center, a church formerly located at 1755 Watson Avenue in Soundview, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

The developer also worked on a residential development at St. Luke Baptist Church at 103 Morningside Avenue in Harlem.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.