NYU's proposal for 370 Jay St.

During the press conference naming NYU the second place winner in the city's tech campus competition, Mayor Bloomberg began his speech by snarking about the number of people who stood behind him. "You can always tell whether something is important by whether people want to participate in the announcement," he said with a smile, pointing out that "nobody" angled for a spot on a podium when he wanted to ban smoking in public places.

But not everyone is behind El Bloombito's tech-forward agenda. At a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board meeting in Midtown last night, NY1 reports that members of the Transport Workers Union demanded that the board vote down the "all-but-done deal" to hand over the MTA's former headquarters at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn to NYU.

"Before the MTA gets into the business of using its public assets that belong to New York City transit riders to create an epicenter of technology in academia, the MTA should use that public asset to create an epicenter of excellent transit service in New York City," said TWU President John Samuelsen.

NY1 says the MTA only pays $1 in rent for 370 Jay St. in Brooklyn, as opposed to $23 million a year for its new headquarters at 2 Broadway in Manhattan, where the agency moved about a decade ago. The TWU proposed that to save costs, the MTA should move back to 370 Jay and another MTA building in Brooklyn and sublease 2 Broadway. But the board wouldn't budge. MTA Chairman and CEO Joseph Lhota pointed out that under the MTA's lease terms with the city, they had to return the property because it wasn't in use. (Kind of a Catch-22 there, huh?) In fact, the entirety of NYU's $50 million deal with the MTA for the space will go towards moving communications equipment to the basement.

One might have guessed that a nostalgic attachment to 370 Jay would rear its head by watching NYC Transit president Tom Prendergast's history lesson during the presser, which starts at about 22:40. "I have to be honest, seeing it leave the MTA family is kind of bittersweet for me," said Mr. Prendergast. "You'd have to recall, 30 years ago it was in much better shape . . . Believe it or not, it was  once a very functional office building and the centerpiece of New York transit."

The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), NYU's proposed applied science research institute that will take over 370 Jay, describes itself as "a consortium of world-class universities and the foremost international tech companies to address the needs of cities." Perhaps union workers--and New Yorkers!--would feel better if one of the needs addressed was "a better transportation system."

Notice the plethora of subway lines? Ahem. (via NYU)

As we expected, with RFPs due tomorrow, this week has turned into something of a PR blitzkrieg to win a chance to build on an applied sciences mecca on city-owned land. After all, once the proposals are in, the competing schools are forbidden to speak publicly about their proposals. Until when? we asked Cornell's PR wrangler Dan Levitan. "Forever!" he said ominously.

Hence yesterday afternoon brought some specs from "StanfordNYC" and NYU's plan transform the MTA's former headquarters at 370 Jay St. into a Center for Urban Science and Progress that will "make Brooklyn the urban center of the universe," as NYU senior vice provost for research Paul Horn told the Daily News.

NYU's proposal, which the Brooklyn Eagle says is separate from the Brooklyn-based NYU-Poly, calls for center where scientists and engineers would address global urban issues like energy efficiency and traffic congestion--problems New York is contending with regardless of Mayor Bloomberg's recently-rediscovered love for all things tech. As for picking downtown Brooklyn over Roosevelt Island, Mr. Horn says, "There are a lot of advantages to being there as opposed to isolated somewhere."

Mr. Horn says NYU could build the center with $20 to $25 million of the $100 million the city has pledged towards the project. That money would cover infrastructure improvements and moving out old MTA equipment. Then NYU plans on spending $450 million on the 200,000 sq. ft. space. Classes would launch at nearby MetroTech in 2013 and then move once the overhaul is complete. 50 faculty from electrical and mechanical engineering to computer science would teach 400 masters students and 100 Phds at CUSP.

The scale of Stanford's proposal, however, dwarfs NYU's. The final specs are even bigger than what was reported earlier this month.

Aerial view of the proposal for StanfordNYC on Roosevelt Island

According to the press release:

"Stanford's response to the New York City Economic Development Corp.'s request for proposals calls for the 30-year development of a $2.5 billion, 1.9-million-square-foot campus on Roosevelt Island focusing on graduate-level teaching and research in engineering, technology and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on transferring discoveries to the marketplace."

The campus is expected to be home to more than 200 faculty members and 2,000 students. If selected, Stanford will launch a $1.5 billion 10-year fundraising campaign to finance the space, and commit an addition $200 million "that will include a combination of startup costs and an initial endowment to support research on the campus."

But Bloomberg's hint that the city might consider picking more than one winner means the selection process might be less of a knock-down, drag-out, and more of a win-win:

"My view is that it doesn't have to be a competition between them and us. It would not be very costly for the city to figure out what it's going to do on Roosevelt Island between Stanford and Cornell, and then at 370 Jay, we'll be fixing up a site they wanted to fix up anyway," Horn said.

Of course, contenders who are eying the same piece of land on Roosevelt Island still have to Thunderdome it out.