Bright lights, big city. (flickr.com/ugod)

As Mayor Bloomberg nears the mile marker for his exit, the rest of the city is starting to chatter about what we're supposed to do now. In December, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer released a report asking what the tech boom has done for New York's working class. But the suits are getting in on the act, too: Today the Partnership for NYC released the NYC Jobs Blueprint, a report chock full of recs for the next mayor.

Most relevant to the tech biz: The Partnership Fund, the organization's investment arm, is willing to pony up $20 million for an urban tech campus providing "flexible, affordable live-work spaces for the next generation of young professionals."

The engineers of the future will never get to leave their desks!

The Partnership is a nonprofit "representing leaders of New York City’s corporate, investment and entrepreneurial businesses." The board includes the familiar face of Kevin Ryan, but co-chairs include Terry Lundgren, CEO of Macy's and Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock. So it's a relatively corporate bunch, but the report shows startups love.

One of the big concerns outlined: The struggle to scale. The report points out, "Although the city is a hotbed of digital startups, few young companies are scaling up to more than 30 or 40 jobs in the city." Unsurprisingly for an organization run by business types, the report cites the costs associated with starting a business--1.5 times the national average, with rent and electricity twice the national average. And so:

"Of the 220,000 businesses in the city, 195,000 or 88%, have fewer than 20 employees.90 Between 2003 and 2010, New York City experienced a 9% increase in the number of firms with one to four employees, but no net increase in the number of firms with 50 or more employees."

Those are some disheartening numbers, though it's probably too early to account for the current boom. But in the meantime, the organization is willing to put its money where its mouth is:

"The Partnership Fund is prepared to invest $20 million in the commercial component of a campus for entrepreneurs and tech startups. A good model is Las Vegas, where Zappos is leading development of a campus on the grounds of the old City Hall. The project will be anchored by the Zappos’ company headquarters and will include work-life integration with housing, education, and technology incubation."

The ideal campus would "include vertical live-work communities and “flex” work space for the growing creative, tech, health and advanced manufacturing sectors." The report recommends expanding the concept of "inclusionary zoning" to " incentivize development of commercial and industrial space in mixed use zones that is affordable to growing companies."

That sounds appealing until you start thinking about living near "industrial space." $20 million doesn't go very far, either, when you consider the potential costs of such a project, but it's something, we suppose. Suggested sites include Downtown Brooklyn, as well as the Sunset Park and LIC waterfronts, the north shore of State Island and Port Morris and Eastchester in the Bronx. (No casinos required, apparently.)

The report also outlines a long-term threat, and that's the erosion of middle-class jobs: "This is partly due to the rising cost of living—driven by the cost of housing—and partly to advances in globalization and automation that allow companies to either eliminate or easily move business support and other mid-level functions to lower cost locations. The consequences of this trend, if it accelerates, could be the destabilization of neighborhoods, weakening of the city’s labor pool, and further narrowing of the tax base."

If that happens and the city hits the skids, those airy Soho lofts won't be so appealing. Note the mention of automation, too--maybe give that a ponder the next time you look at an industry and think of all the ways you can disrupt it with robots and software.

Other recommendations include:

·       Create new public-private investment vehicles to finance necessary infrastructure improvements;
·       Found a permanent innovation advocacy organization comprised of the heads of leading universities, research institutions and innovation industries to drive policies and programs that advance New York’s status in the knowledge economy;
·       Establish industry-labor partnerships, along the lines of NYC & Co., to promote the growth of good jobs in key sectors;
·       Support key programs and policies that nurture the growth of startups into major, scalable employers and reverse the loss of middle class jobs.

The report also calls on the city to support the development of additional affordable lab space for the life-sciences sector and "champion diversity in the tech sector."

(Photo: MTA)

Can a subway line that sidesteps Union Square be the backbone of New York's burgeoning tech scene? Crain's New York Business thinks so, calling the F train a "powerful drawing card," worthy of moniker, "Silicon Subway."

Cornell and Technion have been arguing as much since pinning their hopes on Roosevelt Island--served only by the F line and the aerial tram--for the applied sciences campus. President David Skorton likes to call it the "F-train corridor," arguing that startups will spin out deeper into Queens neighborhoods like Long Island City.

Queens advocates sound less convinced. Indeed, one commercial broker told Crain's that despite office rents as low as $19/sq. ft. and better vacancy than Dumbo, founders aren't looking at LIC, although the F stop in Downtown Brooklyn might benefit. (There's also the fact that the F stop in LIC gets out in Queensbridge Housing projects, which inspired enough hip-hop lyrics to fill an entire album.)

Rather, it all seems to depend on where startup-types make their home:

Talented tech workers are pitching their tents in Brooklyn bedroom communities like Kensington and Carroll Gardens, and in the morning rolling up the rails to their jobs in Dumbo and Manhattan's Flatiron district.

In fact, lower residential rents at the end of the line seem to be Crain's best argument for tying the F train to the tech scene at all:

That's the case in Brooklyn neighborhoods as far out as Gravesend, where creative folks are drawn by larger apartments that rent far below Manhattan norms. Rents rise 10%, 20% and 30% as the F train tracks head toward Manhattan, and Brooklyn landlords are generally more inclined than their Manhattan peers to successfully cope with renters who, yes, have a low base pay, but just may have a higher capacity for racking up overtime or landing stock options.

These landlords know if stock options are worth anything, chances are you won't keep living in Gravesend, right?

WTH is a tech engine? (brooklyntechtriangle.com)

Looks like DUMBO isn't the only neighborhood eager to flaunt its tech prowess. According to a new site launched last week, DUMBO is just one 'hood that's part of the "Brooklyn Tech Triangle," which also includes downtown Brooklyn and the Navy Yard. A local coalition from each neighborhood has been tapped to represent its district in the Brooklyn Tech Triangle initiative, which seeks to establish the area as an innovative and welcoming place for tech firms.

According to a recent report commissioned by the initiative's three main partners, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, DUMBO Improvement District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation:

The Brooklyn Tech Triangle, is currently home to more than 500 creative companies in more than 1.7 million square feet of space.  By 2015 the area is expected to exceed more than 600 firms requiring 3.1 million square feet...Brooklyn has experienced greater and faster growth in the tech and creative sectors than New York City as a whole from 2007 to 2011.  Brooklyn has seen annual average growth of 4.9 percent, compared to -1.4 percent for NYC.

The Brooklyn Tech Triangle initiative intends to use the survey's findings to better understand and address the needs of the area, so that they may "create an area-wide master plan that examines the viability of the tech sector in Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO and the Navy Yard, the reuse of certain real estate assets to accommodate growth and bolster Downtown Brooklyn as a destination for creative companies."

Man, the city is really on its A-game this week. The initiative site's launch, as well as the survey's findings, dovetail nicely with today's announcement that downtown Brooklyn will become the home of a new NYU-sponsored Center for Urban Science and Progress. Of course, it's important to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism, since it's obviously in the best interest of both politicians and real estate developers to make it look like this is indeed a movement and not just spillover from digital DUMBO.

So, "Brooklyn, start your tech engines" the website urges (ugh): looks like the tech turf wars have only just begun.

Check out the Brooklyn Tech Triangle initiative's infographic below.

(brooklyntechtriangle.com)

NYU's initial proposal for a tech campus at 370 Jay St.

UPDATE: Read our liveblog of the Mayor's press conference about the NYU's new Brooklyn campus here.

Well that was well-timed! Hours after The New Yorker posted a profile of Stanford that tore at old wounds about the innovation engine's decision to drop out of building an engineering campus in NYC--blame sour grapes or Seth Pinsky, depending on who you ask--the city is finally ready to make an announcement about a secondary initiative.

According to Mayor Bloomberg's schedule, it looks like the second-place winner is a bid from NYU and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly). In its initial proposal, NYU wanted to transform the derelict former MTA headquarters at 370 Jay Street into a Center for Urban Science and Progress. At 1pm this afternoon, the Mayor will be joining NYU President John Sexton to announce a partnership to create a new "applied sciences center in Downtown Brooklyn." 

A quick refresher: Back in December, when a joint submission from Cornell-Technion was named the winner of the New York City Economic Development Corporation's competition to build an applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, Mayor Bloomberg also teased the possibility that a secondary winner would be named among the three remaining proposals: NYU (Downtown Brooklyn), Columbia (Manhattanville), and Carnegie Mellon (Brooklyn Navy Yard).

The only hangup? The entire $100 million grant from the city for the campus contest had been allotted to Cornell-Technion, meaning the new project (or projects, the city said they would love to build all three) would likely have to rely on philanthropic donations or some creative financing on the city's part in terms of incentives. That's probably why this announcement took months longer than expected.

It's unclear whether NYU's proposal, which also got hung up on the MTA's buyout price for 370 Jay St., will still be at the same location and cover the same scope as initially proposed. But we'll be live-blogging the presser and let you know as soon as we find out. Brooklyn politicians--and real estate developers!--have been lobbying hard for this to get approved, so expect plenty of self-congratulatory back-patting.