The synthesis and characterization of benzyl-spaced aminopropyl-functionalized mesoporous silica is reported by a method designed to reduce silanol-amine and amine-amine interactions, The new material is characterized by N-2 physisorption, thermogravimetric analysis, potentiometric titration, X-ray diffraction, FT-Raman spectroscopy, and C-13 and Si-29 solid-state NMR spectroscopy. The degree of clustering of the amines is studied by solid-state fluorescence lspectroscopy of 1-pyrenecarboxylic acid bound to the deprotected benzyl-spaced ammosilica. The results obtained provide evidence of an amine loading comparable to traditional dense amine grafting approaches on SBA-15. Thermogravimetric analysis, FT-Raman spectroscopy, and C-13 solid-state NMR spectroscopy results show evidence that the protected imine can be quantitatively cleaved to yield the corresponding amine. As evidenced by fluorescence spectroscopy, the benzyl-spaced material is isolated enough to prevent excimer formation of the probe molecule, unlike aminopropyl-functionalized silica materials prepared by traditional grafting approaches.