New York University’s expansion plan was certified on Tuesday by the Department of City Planning.
The two decade plan—named NYU 2031: NYU in NYC—includes 6 million square feet of growth, with 1.3 million square feet of above ground classroom and housing space and 1.1 million square feet—including a gymnasium—of space below grade. Four new buildings will be on NYU-owned superblocks in Washington Square Village.
If the plan receives the multiple city approvals it needs—changes to a zoning map, zoning text, and the city map—then, the first two buildings are scheduled for completion by 2021. The other two buildings would be built between 2021 and 2031.
NYU has experienced an increase of 25 percent in its student body—more than 55,000 are currently enrolled, a number they expect to stay stable for the next couple decades—and also employs more than 16,000 faculty. The housing will be used primarily for incoming freshman, while a hotel planned in one of the buildings would be for both visiting faculty—NYU has campuses in the Middle East and Asia—and the public.
Last year, an international partnership of six universities headed by NYU entered a proposal for the applied sciences campus that would transform an abandoned building in downtown Brooklyn into cutting-edge lab space.
Though Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s proposal was selected for the applied sciences campus, Mayor Bloomberg has not ruled out awarding other entries incentives to manifest their plan, including the NYU proposal.
