(Mark Your Calendars: RealShare HOTELS 2011, September 15 in New York City).
NEW YORK CITY-Following in the footsteps of New York’s Capital Region, the city is pushing to compete on a national stage as the Silicon Valley of the East. At an event Tuesday afternoon, city officials issued a request for proposals for its “Applied Sciences NYC” initiative, seeking a university, institution or consortium to develop a new engineering and applied science campus on city-owned land, offering up to $100 million for the best design.
During a speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city has become “an increasingly important player in the technology and bio-science industries.” And by investing new capital into the high-tech field, the city, in turn, will generate intellectual capital, generating thousands of jobs for years to come. “We have made major investments to help bioscience companies to grow and expand in New York City,” Bloomberg said, adding that the boroughs are also home to the “most promising and creative technology start-ups in the country” and more than 626,000 students.
The city-owned sites currently in consideration are the Navy Hospital Campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Goldwater Hospital Campus on Roosevelt Island and Governors Island. After releasing the RFP, the New York City Economic Development Corp. projects that over the next 35 years, the project will generate an estimated $6 billion in overall economic activity across the five boroughs, create 22,000 permanent jobs, 7,700 construction jobs and approximately $1.2 billion in direct and indirect taxes for the city. The RFPs are due in the fall and a winner will be selected by the end of 2011.
But Bloomberg said much is already being done in the life science sphere, such as its $25 million investment in lab space in Brooklyn and Manhattan that has helped attract $775 million from the state and private developers. The first phase of the new lab--located at East River Science Park--was completed in 2010, and is already virtually full, he said. At the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the BioBAT lab space, anchored by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, has created 500,000 square feet of commercial lab space and 1,000 jobs in partnership with SUNY Downstate.
Interest in the three sites is already beginning to grow. GlobeSt.com previously reported that Stanford University has expressed interest in developing a New York campus on Roosevelt Island, but other universities, such as Cornell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and several others are also vying for space.
The entire process has Leslie Torres, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. (RIOC), a public benefit corporation and a political subdivision of the state, “excited about the potential for a world-class institution to join” the island. “The fact they’ve tried to include the Roosevelt Island community is fabulous,” Torres tells GlobeSt.com. She says once the RFP process is complete, the ROIC anticipates to review bids and continue ongoing conversations with the city and potential developers. “Right now, it is a global excitement for us that there’s plans to put an institution on the island and make it an active part of the community.”
In the life science and high-tech realm as a whole, several major deals have been completed in this year alone, including Sabey Data Center’s $120 million acquisition of 375 Pearl St. and Facebook’s 15-year lease for 40,220 square feet at 335 Madison Ave., as well as dozens of web 2.0 start-ups.
"No other city is poised to lead in the high-tech economy of the future like New York City," says New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), in a statement. "We need to harness our city's potential to spark new industries, attract businesses and create thousands of jobs."
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