New York University has unveiled plans for a superschool that it believes will position Brooklyn as the epicenter of global thinking about how cities around the world operate in the face of growing populations.
In response to a request for proposals from the City of New York, NYU plans to build the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in a 60,000 s/f space at 1 Metrotech Center in Downtown Brooklyn. Classes would begin in that space as early as September 2013.
The development plan also calls for an expansion into a fully renovated 370 Jay Street by 2016 that would provide space for business incubation as well as CUSP research and labs.
The building, located adjacent to the current NYU-Poly campus at Metrotech, is currently leased to the MTA by the City of New York, and has remained virtually unused for a number of years It also is expected that additional expansion opportunities could also take place at existing and new facilities at Metrotech.
At the heart of the university’s proposal is an academic program to investigate and develop solutions to the challenges that face cities around the world.
“For the first time in history, most of the world’s human population lives in cities. By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s 9 billion people will live in cities,” said NYU senior vice president Lynne P. Brown.
“The shifting population will stretch current resources and present new challenges — some of which haven’t even surfaced yet. CUSP will be at the forefront of providing solutions to these challenges, and will create an entire new industry in New York.”
CUSP will bring together global leaders of science, technology and education in a partnership that includes Carnegie Mellon University, University of Toronto, City University of New York (CUNY), University of Warwick, and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay as well as industry leaders such as IBM, Cisco and Siemens.
“The need for better city management has never been greater and The Center for Urban Sciences and Progress provides an exciting opportunity for New York City,” said Dr. Bernard Meyerson, IBM’s vice president of innovation. “This program is adopting new approaches to accelerate the creation of skills and economic growth.”
CUSP’s Brooklyn presence would, at full strength, include 50 researchers and faculty members from universities and private industry, along with more than 400 Masters students and 100 Ph.D. candidates, as well as adjuncts, post doctoral candidates and support staff.
CUSP will be the first program to assemble a global consortium to focus on this area of research and development at this scale.
If it gets the go-ahead, CUSP would be among the first major facilities to be developed within the NYU 2031 framework, a plan to meet NYU’s academic space needs throughout the city over the next two decades.
