By Ben Fractenberg
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — New York University unveiled a plan on Wednesday to expand by more than 6 million square feet across Manhattan and other boroughs over the next 25 years.
The plan includes a satellite campus on Governors Island, moving the nursing school to a First Avenue “health corridor” and developing a Polytechnic school along Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, according to NYU’s Web site.
“Indispensable to realizing the overall vision of Framework 2031— and advancing as a preeminent academic institution—is having sufficient physical space to build laboratories and research space for faculty, conduct classes for students, and house all the artists, scholars, and students who will answer the call to come to New York City and make contributions to it,” said NYU president John Sexton in a letter posted on the site.
But not everyone in the community is pleased about the project.
“We’re here today to say you’re not listening,” Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation executive director Andrew Berman told the New York Times at a public unveiling of the plan Wednesday. “There are a lot of opportunities that N.Y.U. is not seizing, such as the stalled development projects throughout the city.”
Berman was one of hundreds of people from the residential and school community packed into an open house at the Kimmel Center for University Life on Washington Square South.
"This strategy recognizes that the Greenwich Village area cannot accommodate all the space N.Y.U. needs," NYU spokesman John Beckman told The New York Observer. "If we can't develop it remotely, we'll do without it."
The plan will have to jump trough several hoops, including raising substantial capital and getting approval from several city authorities.
NYU hopes to finish the expansion in time for its 200th anniversary in 2031.
