Reykjavík backs Hjalli school move, Reitir builds campus, city revisits private-school contracts

• Reitir will build and lease a new Hjallastefnan preschool and compulsory school on Nauthólsveg by Öskjuhlíð.
• The school network has operated in temporary arrangements since losing its previous site four years ago.
• Mayor Hildur Björnsdóttir says Reykjavík will support the planning process and review contracts with independent schools.
• The new school forms part of a wider mixed-use project with senior housing and a nursing home.

Reykjavík’s city government, the Hjallastefnan private school network and listed property company Reitir signed a memorandum on Tuesday for a new preschool and compulsory school at Öskjuhlíð, ending four years of temporary arrangements for the school. RÚV reports that Reitir will build the premises and lease them to Hjallastefnan on a site at Nauthólsveg in Reykjavík.

The immediate story is one school finding an address. The larger one is how the capital is assembling education capacity when it does not have suitable premises ready itself. Hjallastefnan’s Askja preschool opened in 2009 at Nauthólsveg 87 and stayed there for 13 years before making way for student housing for Reykjavík University. Since then, the operation has been moved from one temporary solution to another. Earlier this year, Reykjavík’s education and youth administration directed Hjallastefnan to contact Reitir, which is developing what it calls a “quality-of-life hub” in the area.

That project already includes approval for 150 apartments for residents aged 60 and over, while former Icelandair offices nearby are being converted into a nursing home. The school is the final piece in that sequence, according to Reitir chief executive Guðni Aðalsteinsson: older residents in one building, nursing care in another, and the youngest age group added through the school. The new premises will rise on a parking lot next to the Reykjavík Natura Berjaya hotel, with parking for the school and hotel to be arranged around the site. What Reykjavík is securing here is not a municipally built school but access to privately financed floor space inside a broader real-estate development.

That matters because Mayor Hildur Björnsdóttir also said the city plans to review its contracts with independent schools in order to strengthen their financial base. If those terms improve while developers provide the buildings, more of the city’s education infrastructure will sit outside direct municipal ownership even as it remains tied to public planning decisions and public funding. The incentives are plain enough: private operators get more stable economics, developers get long-term tenants, and City Hall gets school places without first delivering the premises itself.

For Hjallastefnan, founded by Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, the practical change is simpler. After four years of borrowed rooms and short horizons, the network now has a site, a builder and a landlord. The school that lost its home to student flats is set to return to Nauthólsveg on a former parking lot.

Källor: RÚV