Manhattan BP Scott Stringer and John Sexton Announce Agreement on Principles for Future NYU Campus Development
Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer and President John Sexton recently announced that NYU, elected officials, and local community groups had agreed to a set of principles to guide the University’s future expansion.
As outlined, NYU, which projects a need for six million square feet of space over the coming decades, will pursue re-use of existing buildings before developing new facilities and will actively pursue academic and residential centers outside the Washington Square area.
In addition, the principles are designed to emphasize contextual development, mitigate the effects of construction, enhance community consultation, and support community sustainability, such as preservation efforts aimed at local retail businesses.
“These historic ‘town gown’ principles take into account long-standing neighborhood concerns and set out the surrounding community’s key role in the future expansion plans for NYU,” Stringer said. “They reflect months of hard work on the part of the Community Task Force on NYU Development, NYU, and my office. Everyone came to the table with an agenda, but also with an open mind. That allowed us to hammer out a set of principles that will serve both the University’s need to expand to meet its academic needs and local residents’ desire for real input into development that directly affects their lives and their neighborhood.”
As embodied in the principles, NYU will also engage in extensive community outreach for new projects, work to minimize negative effects of construction including noise and dust, and develop a relocation policy for legal residential tenants displaced by University projects. The principles constitute a framework for detailed future discussions. They are the result of more than a year of meetings involving NYU’s leadership and planning team, the Borough President’s office, and the Community Task Force of elected officials and local community groups.
“New York’s future as a world capital depends largely on the strength of its intellectual, cultural, and educational sector, and robust research universities are indispensable to that,” said Sexton. “NYU’s growth must be accompanied by a respect for the neighborhood ‘ecosystem’ of which we are a part, and provide our neighbors with predictability and transparency. This set of principles creates a framework for that.”
The Planning Principles include: establishing criteria for development within the existing NYU footprint in the University’s campus core and the surrounding neighborhoods, identifying solutions to maximize utilization of existing assets by consulting with the community, making thoughtful urban and architectural design a priority, supporting community sustainability, and respecting the community’s existing quality of life.
Overall, those involved include elected officials and community groups affected by their proximity to the NYU campus core. Besides Stringer and NYU, the Community Task Force on NYU Development includes Congressman Jerrold Nadler; City Council Members Alan J. Gerson, Rosie Mendez, and Christine C. Quinn; State Senators Martin Connor and Thomas K. Duane; State Assembly Members Deborah J. Glick and Brian P. Kavanagh; Manhattan Community Boards 2 and 3; The American Institute of Architects; the Carmine Street Block Association; the Coalition to Save the East Village; The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation; the NoHo Neighborhood Association; and The SoHo Alliance. Other endorsers of the agreement include The Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, the NoHo NY BID, and the Village Alliance BID.
