New York University announced on Tuesday that its new Center for Urban Science and Progress will launch next fall at MetroTech in Downtown Brooklyn.
Construction is now underway on around 26,000 square feet of space in 1 MetroTech Center that will be occupied by CUSP, but the center’s permanent headquarters will eventually be just down the block, in a former M.T.A. facility at 370 Jay St.
Between the two facilities, CUSP will have more than half a million square feet to work with. In a press release, N.Y.U.’s says the center will “bring together global leaders of science, technology and education while anchoring the next phase of economic development initiatives in the area.”
When CUSP is eventually at full strength, those leaders will include 50 researchers and faculty members from both academia and private industries, along with more than 400 master’s students and 100 Ph.D. candidates, as well as adjuncts, post-doctoral scholars and support staff.
N.Y.U.’s construction on the massive 370 Jay St. space will take an estimated five years, and will include laboratory space, along with classrooms and offices.
This isn’t going to be the university’s first appearance in Downtown Brooklyn. All of this CUSP work is taking place right next to another big presence in the area, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, better known as N.Y.U.-Poly.
Steven Koonin, who was chosen as CUSP’s director back in April, has a background befitting of the post. He’s a theoretical physicist, who, after spending three decades at CalTech, went on to become the chief scientist for BP, and then a high-ranking member the U.S. Department of Energy.
Along with all of its expected academic benefits, Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky said CUSP will have a “monumental impact” on the city’s economy, by generating $5.5 billion in activity, creating more than 7,000 jobs and spinning off 200 companies in the coming decades.
State Senator Daniel Squadron, whose district includes the Downtown Brooklyn area, is also up on CUSP. Starting last year, he’d been urging the city to award N.Y.U.’s proposal for an applied science campus at the 370 Jay St. building. And for years before that, he and other politicians had lobbied the M.T.A. to make its vacant building available for reuse.
Squadron said he can’t wait to welcome CUSP’s first students.
“This is a double win for Brooklyn,” he said, “that will put a keystone property to use while continuing to grow our community as a hub for innovation.”
