New York University isn’t just gobbling up space in Greenwich Village. The university plans to spend $500 million on an expansion in Downtown Brooklyn.
NYU President Andrew Hamilton said the 10-year plan includes adding 500,000 square feet to the school’s Tandon School of Engineering by renovating the MTA’s former headquarters at 370 Jay Street.
That project will nearly double NYU’s 600,000-square-foot footprint in the area. The high tech school, which has more than 5,200 students enrolled, plans to move into the 500,000-square-foot Jay Street building by the fall of 2017.
NYU signed a 99-year ground lease for the building in 2012, under an initiative by the Bloomberg administration to boost science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.
In recent years, NYU scaled back its design for the site, which at one time was to have a futuristic steel and glass facade.
The building will be NYU’s largest in Brooklyn, and it will be able to hold 1,100 students and 40 faculty members.
It will be financed, in part, with a $100 million donation from philanthropists Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon. [NYDN] — E.B. Solomont