CUNY school to relocate from Bryant Park to new UWS digs

Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, the City University of New York’s newest institution, will relocate from its Midtown home to much larger digs in a CUNY-owned building on the Upper West Side.

The institution, CUNY’s first new community college in more than four decades, will relocate from Allied Partners’ 50 West 40th Street near Bryant Park. It occupies just over 90,000 square feet across eight floors at the property and will leave when its lease expires in 2020.

It will move to the CUNY-owned 445 West 59th Street, a roughly 300,000-square-foot property currently home to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a spokesperson for the system confirmed. The move will allow the college to grow from its inaugural class of about 300 students to an enrollment of 5,000.

John Jay is vacating the building as the school consolidates and relocates departments among other buildings in the neighborhood, including the new, 625,000-square-foot building designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill the school opened down the block at 529 West 59th Street in 2011.

Allied, meanwhile, is already planning for Guttman’s exit. A representative for Allied said the company plans to tear down the building after the college leaves, but declined to comment further. Allied also owns the property next door, at 54 West 40th Street.

Originally called the New Community College, the school changed its name in 2013 after the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation donated $15 million.

Mark Maurer contributed reporting.