Opinion: Building the life sciences hub of the future

If you’ve walked down First Avenue in Manhattan’s Kips Bay, you’re probably familiar with the massive brick buildings between 25th and 26th streets, wrapped in fencing and in some parts, scaffolding. This is Hunter College’s Brookdale Campus, spanning the entire city block between First Avenue and the FDR Drive, and since its construction in 1954, it has been crucial to public health and public education in New York City. For decades, it has graduated thousands of nurses who have gone on to work in hospitals across the city and country.

But the campus’ aging structures weren’t designed to deliver a modern health education. And as its buildings have aged, neighbors and local leaders have wondered whether this site could deliver more impact for New York City. 

Now, New York City is taking action to do just that. The City Council just voted to approve a transformative project for this site, called the Science Park and Research Campus Kips Bay. This project will bring together three CUNY colleges onto a first of its kind job and education hub in life sciences and health care. It will bring modern academic and research buildings and new open space to the local community, as well as create 15,000 jobs and inject $42 billion into the economy.

As the Chancellor of the City University of New York and the president and CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, we thank Council Member Keith Powers and the New York City Council for supporting SPARC Kips Bay, and we’re excited to continue our progress on this vision. This isn’t just new buildings. It's jobs and opportunity. And it’s public health, public education, and research infrastructure for generations of New Yorkers to come.

New York is already a national leader in the life sciences. We have nine major academic medical centers. Billions in public and private research and development funding every year. 1,500 companies and 42,000 jobs. With SPARC, we’re building on this success. And we’re building the pipeline for all New Yorkers to be a part of it.

SPARC will bring new, modern facilities for three CUNY colleges – the Hunter College School of Nursing and School of Health Professions, the CUNY Graduate School of Health and Health Policy, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s health programs. It will include a new public high school to prepare our children for careers in health and the life sciences. And it will also include critical public health infrastructure, with an ambulatory care center for NYC Health + Hospitals and a forensic pathology center for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The campus will benefit the surrounding Kips Bay community. Where today the campus is fenced off from the surrounding streets, SPARC will unlock 1.5 acres of improvements to the public realm, including a new central open space for students, health workers, and the public. A new ADA-accessible pedestrian bridge over the FDR will deliver improved, equitable access to the East River waterfront – a longstanding priority for this community.

And the city intends to build SPARC under a Project Labor Agreement, ensuring that its 12,000 construction jobs come with fair wages, benefits and safety protections for workers.

Picture a kid from the Straus Houses just a block away, graduating from the new SPARC high school, enrolling in Hunter’s medical laboratory sciences program, and then landing an internship and their first job at a biotech startup company – all on the same campus. Or a seasoned Bellevue Hospital nurse, walking a few blocks down First Avenue to SPARC to squeeze in continuing education courses between shifts, earning their way to a graduate degree and a promotion. New Yorkers of all ages and from all backgrounds will walk onto the SPARC campus as students, and walk out as life science professionals, health care practitioners, and public health policy makers.

This vision of a connected, inclusive, and activated community hub – a public space that is safe and comfortable, with a distinct personality – is the product of years of planning and conversations between elected officials and community leaders, high school students and healthcare executives, NYCHA tenants and organized labor representatives. And now, with the City Council’s approval, it’s one big step closer to becoming a reality.

SPARC Kips Bay is a win for public education, public health, and for the Kips Bay community. It’s an investment in a fast-growing sector with good jobs. In the place of Hunter’s venerable Brookdale campus, we’re building the life sciences campus of the future.