THE HUB — A new center for the Metropolitan College of New York containing 17 classrooms, three computer labs, a library and a financial aid center for students should be ready to open in The Hub by the summer, school officials say.
The approximately $15 million building is one of many new developments coming to The Hub, and it will allow the college to provide its students with several more amenities in The Bronx than they currently get at its site on Courtlandt Avenue, according to MCNY President Vinton Thompson.
"The space at 529 Courtlandt was always intended to be a temporary space while we found a permanent home in The Bronx," he said. "It’s a small space. It probably has a capacity for no more than 200 students. We’ve run up to about 150 or so there, but we’re really pushing the limits."
The new site by 149th Street and Brook Avenue should have space for closer to 500 students and stands at about 26,000 square feet, much larger than the roughly 8,000-square-foot space on Courtlandt Avenue, Thompson said.
MCNY's main site is downtown at 431 Canal St., but a majority of the students at its Bronx site come from The Bronx, according to Erica Morales, director of the school's Bronx extension center.
This makes having a more substantial building in the borough significantly more convenient for them, Thompson said.
"We serve primarily an adult working student population," he said, "and so convenience to either home or workplace is a major feature in their decisions on where they’re going to attend."
MCNY will offer undergraduate classes in subjects like business and healthcare management at the new Bronx building, as well as MBA and MPA programs, according to Morales.
"Compared to our current space, where we’re limited, this space allows us to collaborate with other organizations, agencies," she said.
School officials were particularly happy that they were opening up the college's new building in The Hub, saying that its reputation as a center for social service agencies would nicely complement the school's human services program.
Officials hope to have the new building open by July 1, in the middle of MCNY's summer session, and Thompson hopes it will help contribute to a revitalization of the South Bronx, particularly in terms of commercial development.
"[There’s] a tremendous rebuilding of housing in the South Bronx," he said. "What’s lagged is corresponding commercial economic development and education, and we see ourselves in part as bringing that next stage of the renaissance of The Bronx here, building on the residential rebuilding."
