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December 16, 2010
City dangles carrot to help produce a Google
Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel says the city is ready to offer cash or real estate to attract an applied science school and bolster the area's economic future.
Crain's NY Business
by Jeremy Smerd
This has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, eminent domain, or Forest City Ratner — yet. But it's worth noting that Forest City Enterprises "is recognized as one of the country's leading developers and owners of life science campuses," by its own humble admission. And since they are also to subsidies what a pig is to truffles, and the Bloomberg Administration said today that the city "will contribute an as-yet undefined but 'significant' sum to persuade a university or applied science organization to set up shop here," you can expect that the gears in Bruce Ratner's head are already turning — if, in fact, the deal hasn't already been cooked up in some Metrotech back room.
The Bloomberg administration wants the next Google to be made in New York.
The city is looking to attract engineers whose innovations could help shift the local economy away from its reliance on the financial services industry. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel announced in his first policy speech that the administration is seeking to attract to the city a new school for applied science and engineering.
...In his speech, made Thursday at Google's New York City headquarters on Ninth Avenue, Mr. Steel said the city is issuing a formal request for expressions of interest and will contribute an as-yet undefined but “significant” sum to persuade a university or applied science organization to set up shop here.
He said incentives could come in the form of cash or city real estate in locations such as the Navy Hospital Campus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, several sites on Governors Island, Goldwater Hospital Campus on Roosevelt Island, Farm Colony on Staten Island or in central business districts around the city. Mr. Steel cited Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City as an example of the kind of remote campus the city envisions.
Posted by eric at December 16, 2010 5:11 PM