City Tech kicks off Jay Street facilities construction

New York City College of Technology broke ground on the school’s new eight-story building today.

Formerly helmed by Bruce Ratner, who backed out of the project at the start of the recession when the school balked at the cost, City Tech ultimately moved forward with the project on its own.

The hulking eight-story project on Jay Street near Tillary Street will replace the school’s aging Klitgord Auditorium and is to include laboratories, classrooms, offices, health clinics, a 1,000-seat auditorium and 800-seat gym, the Brooklyn Paper reported. Construction is expected to finish in the spring of 2017, not a moment too fast for a student body that officials say has increased by half over the last 12 years.

“We’re far below the recommended ratio of square footage needed to serve that number of students,” Stephen Soiffer, an assistant to the college president, told the Brooklyn Paper. [Brooklyn Paper] — Julie Strickland