New dorm coming in 2009

26-story residence hall to be built on 12th Street

NYU will build a new 26-story residence hall on E. 12th Street with room for 700 undergraduates in the spring of 2009, university officials announced yesterday.

The university plans to maintain the façade of the historic St. Ann’s Church on 110 E. 12th Street, which will be part of the site of the new 190,000 square-foot residence hall. NYU will occupy 108 to 120 E. 12th St. between Third and Fourth avenues for the new dorm.

Attributes of the dorm include its ability to help limit the number of students living in downtown dorms and create “a robust undergraduate residence life” by adding more dorms to an increasingly campus-like community at Union Square, said Lynne Brown, senior vice president for university relations and public affairs.

“We’re still figuring out how to best use the facility,” said Brown, adding that it is still too early to determine the dormitory’s layout, facilities and which students will live there.

NYU announced changes to its housing lottery system last spring that would give rising sophomores priority during dorm selection next semester. The intended result would be a “sophomore cluster” around Union Square, which would echo the freshman-year experience in the Washington Square cluster.

Although the 12th Street dorm will be located near the designated sophomore cluster at Union Square, Brown said it will not necessarily be a part of the cluster.

“It’s a little too early to tell how the next year works through with the changes in the lottery system,” Brown said.

Brown would not disclose how the purchase was financed, but said NYU will eventually own the new building.

Building ownership is preferable to leasing because it is often less expensive, she said, adding that NYU’s goal is to have fewer leased and downtown residence halls. The university will continue to renew leases on all its downtown residence halls until the building is ready for use, Brown said.

NYU partnered with Hudson Companies Inc. to develop the property, which Hudson acquired from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York about one year ago.

NYU’s interest in opening dorms closer to Union Square stems from numerous student requests, vice president for residential education Tom Ellett said.

“More students have indicated they want to live closer to the Union Square area,” Ellet said. “It will become a hub of the university.”

Some students said they had mixed feelings about directing housing away from downtown to the village area.

“The idea of Water Street is nice — some people really like living there,” CAS freshman Kiran Dinsa said. “It makes housing more diverse. I know a lot of people who would rather live at Water Street than any new construction closer to campus.”

Other students said they wished they had the opportunity to live in a brand-new, conveniently located residence hall.

“I would love to live there,” Steinhardt sophomore Allyssa Kasoff. “It’s really centrally located. You could be in either Union Square or Alphabet City.”

Nearby residents said they weren’t happy with the prospect of swarms of NYU students moving onto the primarily residential street.

“I’m bummed,” said David Lewis, who lives in a building next door to the dorm’s future site. “It’s going to be a gargantuan building. It’s going to be out of place.”

NYU alumna Diane Marrero, who lives near the future dorm, said NYU mainly focuses on its economic interests.

“You can’t stop NYU,” Marrero said. “NYU is a real estate company before it’s a university.”

— additional reporting by Jenna Marotta

Alicia D. Hurley, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Federal Policy
Acting Director, Government and Community Relations
New York University
70 Washington Square South, Room 1107
New York, NY  10012

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Fax:  212.995.4849
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