Queens elected officials voiced their support for the city’s plans to bring a new hi-tech science campus to nearby Roosevelt Island.
Congressmember Carolyn Maloney spoke in Long Island City with community leaders in support of the city site as the best place to house the new campuses for Cornell or Stanford University – two schools the city is considering giving $100 million in aid to, as well as free land, in an effort to lure them.
“An applied sciences and engineering facility on Roosevelt Island offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spur western Queens’ transformation into a world-class hub of technology and entrepreneurship and to generate significant long-term job growth for the borough,” said Maloney at the press conference on October 17.
The school’s expansion to New York City is a part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiative to attract a major applied science and engineering university to the area to boost the local economy and bring much needed jobs and more hard sciences to the city. The subsidies will include $100 million for infrastructure and a free city-owned site for the proposed new facility of the university.
Roosevelt Island is the latest location being considered against Governor’s Island and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Community leaders argued Queens would also be a boon to the new university campus, citing its location and diversity as essential assets.
“Queens has the transportation, land and community to support the growth of the university,” said Jukay Hsu, founder of the non-profit Coalition for Queens.
Final bids from the schools are due October 28.
