Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has until April 12 to tell the City Planning Commission whether he supports New York University’s ambitious expansion plans.
On the merits, the decision is a total no-brainer: The project will provide major economic dividends to the city.
Benefits like 18,200 construction jobs, 9,500 new permanent jobs and $6 billion in hard and soft construction spending, generating annual tax revenues of $25 million for City Hall and $20 million for Albany.
The development would also add a new public school and more parks.
Any would-be mayor should embrace such dividends with unqualified enthusiasm.
Alas, not Stringer. He’s sidled up to the predictably short-sighted, knee-jerk anti-development opposition from neighbors of NYU’s Greenwich Village campus.
Officially, his opinion is only advisory. But as borough president, and having been involved in the issue for two years, it’s more than pro forma.
The key votes come later this spring and early summer — from the planning commission, and then the City Council, where another mayoral hopeful, Speaker Christine Quinn, pulls the strings.
NYU’s expansion would add 2.4 million square feet of much-needed space — with almost half of it underground. And new construction will not clash dramatically with what already exists.
But the locals see it as an intrusion in their long-outdated fantasy of bohemian Greenwich Village.
They want the university to acquire new space in the financial district — which would require leasing space in disconnected buildings, totally negating the idea of a genuinely cohesive campus.
Indeed, NYU’s footprint in Greenwich Village dates back to 1835 — and it proposes to build on land it already owns, which means no one will lose their homes, and that no eminent domain will be used to displace locals. Or payoffs made to local community groups to win their support.
NYU has long been both an academic and an economic engine for New York. Its proposed expansion is in keeping with that tradition — one that only works to the city’s benefit.
Failure to support the project will call into serious question Stringer’s judgment, and his qualifications to serve as mayor.