The Proposals Are In

On Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city received seven proposals from 17 universities hoping to grab a stake in the Applied Sciences NYC Initiative.

While the proposals’ intimate details were not made public, what’s significant is that some of the universities clearly looked outside the city’s “officially approved” Roosevelt Island, Governor’s Island, and Brooklyn Naval Yard sites. And while most of the universities would understandably want to take full advantage of the $100 million in cash and building space the city is offering, there is also sizable private investment driving the universities’ unique visions for what they can achieve in New York.

As Queens residents eager to see our borough grow into the next “Silicon City”, we see tremendous upside for the local tech community regardless of which proposal the Applied Sciences NYC Advisory Committee chooses to endorse. If New York City is really to become a world class capital of technological innovation, the people, environment, and infrastructure of Queens is going to play a big role, as community leaders and elected officials have seen and fought for.