Many New Yorkers have long thought that NYU has always been one of the largest property owners in Manhattan.
But according to Will Haas, director of planning, this common misconception surfaced as a result of NYU's rapid transfer down to Washington Square after selling its former campus in the Bronx.
"There probably is this conception in part because in the '70s we had to sell off the Bronx campus and everything had to be concentrated here [in Greenwich Village]," Haas said. "From that point on, you're in essence reestablishing a university down here, and there's a number of facilities and housing that needs to be generated in this area."
When NYU created the Office of Strategic Assessment, Planning and Design two years ago, one of the group's first tasks was to take a comprehensive inventory of everything the university owns, something that had never been done before.
WHAT NYU OWNS
Currently, NYU owns a total of 15 million gross square feet of space in Manhattan, 10.8 million of which are concentrated in the Washington Square/Union Square area.
The remaining 4.2 million square feet are dispersed throughout the city in the Medical and Dental centers, the Institute of Fine Arts on the Upper East Side and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies' Downtown and Midtown centers.
Despite the 7.5 million square feet reserved for academic and administrative purposes, nearly 16 percent of it, or 1.2 million square feet, is leased.
The single largest area of leased property, however, is part of NYU's 3.3 million square feet of undergraduate student housing. About 33 percent of that space is leased.
"For an academic institution, we're very unique in that we have about half our space in academic space and about half our space in residential space," said Lori Mazor, associate vice president of planning and design. "Most institutions don't have nearly as much residential space."
While NYU uses 3.3 million gross square feet of space for undergraduate housing, it also has 3 million gross square feet of owned property for faculty housing.
A university's property size can also be determined by the amount of gross square feet it has per student.
John Beckman, university spokesman, said that NYU currently has 160 square feet per student.
Although this amount is large compared to the City University of New York's standard of 20 gross square feet per student, it is small compared to the space available for students attending Ivy League schools. Columbia University has more than twice NYU's space per student at 326 gross square feet, while Yale University dwarfs NYU's numbers by more than five times at 866 gross square feet per student.
ENROLLMENT
NYU's student population is currently growing at an annual rate of 1.5 percent. As of 2006, total enrollment at NYU amounted to 53,850 students, with 21,000 undergraduates, 20,000 graduates and professionals and 13,000 non-credit students. Although NYU is a major institution in New York City, its student growth rate will not go along with the city's projected annual student growth rate of 2.5 percent.
"We actually are not planning a significant growth in our student body over the next 25 years, and that's a conscious choice," Mazor said. "The [annual] growth that the city is projecting is at a rate of 2.5 percent, and we're really looking at half a percent. So we're looking at 5,000 [more] students over the next 25 years."
While the university is limiting the amount of students it will admit to its Washington Square campus, it is expecting to increase its student population through its potential global regional campuses and study abroad programs. By 2031, NYU is expecting 7,000 students to attend its global regional campuses with 3,000 additional students studying abroad on an annual basis.
FACULTY AND ECONOMIC IMPACT
The university has an estimated 6,800 faculty members, half of whom are full-time employees. As an employer in New York City, NYU has a total of 11,200 full-time employees, and an additional 5,000 at the Medical Center.
This places the university as one of the 10 largest employers in New York City, with an annual total payroll of $658 million.
The university has also emphasized its impact on the local economy. NYU said it spends approximately $387 million annually on goods and services from local city and state businesses.
In order to draw potential faculty members, the university owns about 2,000 units of faculty housing, most of which is located in Washington Square Village and the Silver Towers complex. NYU has approximately 3 million gross square feet of space for faculty housing - almost the same amount of undergraduate student housing.
Over the next 25 years, the university is seeking to increase both faculty and undergraduate housing to 4 million gross square feet each.
Since NYU currently only owns about 2 million gross square feet of its undergraduate housing, it will need to purchase a total of 2 million gross square feet to reach its goal of housing 60 percent of students in 2031.
Haas said it was important for the university to own its student housing.
"We think there's a few reasons why we'd want to [own the dorms] and that's for predictability and stability," he said.
Byron Cheung is deputy news editor. E-mail him at bcheung@nyunews.com.
ABOUT THE SERIES: NYU 2031
NYU 2031 is an eight-part series about the university's plan for expansion over the next 25 years.
The Background Nov. 5 Strategic Planning Nov. 6 Inventory of NYU 2007
What's Next Nov. 7 Projects in the Works Nov. 8 The Future of NYC Higher Ed
Washington Square 2031 Nov. 12 Endowment, Sustainability and Design Nov. 13 NYU in the City
The Community and the World Nov. 14 Global Campus Initiative Nov. 15 Community Relations
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