Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha announced today that the school is going to lease out its newish 41 Cooper Square to NYU's Polytechnic Institute, according to a post on Gothamist.
Gothamist is citing a letter from Bharucha that reads, in part:
Beginning in academic year 2015, The Cooper Union will lease its recently completed New Academic Building at 41 Cooper Square to NYU-Poly to ensure $20 million in new revenue annually by 2018, putting our institution on a sustainable path for the future while maintaining reverence for its past.
The 41 Cooper Square has been, for the community, a reminder of past ill-planning and fiduciary neglect. We have, and must continue, to live within the means provided to us in order to preserve Peter Cooper's innovative social mission. We shall not falter in this regard.
In the coming weeks, I will be appointing a Relocation Task Force comprised of engineering faculty, alumni, students, and industry leaders who will be charged with locating an ideal, alternative site for the Albert N. Nerken School of Engineering and the School of Art studios in one of New York's neighboring boroughs. This bold plan of relocation will not be without contention, so we are launching cooperrelocation.info as an information hub and receptacle for community opinion.
As an administrator, it is my understanding that generosity begets generosity, and so, as a first goodwill gesture to the community, I am also announcing a relocation of my own. The President's Residency at the landmark 21 Stuyvesant St. will be moving to the Cooper Union's academic housing at 29 3rd Avenue. Known as the Stuyvesant-Fish House, No. 21 was built by Petrus Stuyvesant, great-grandson of Peter-Stuyvesant, in 1803, and gifted to the Cooper Union. Per its intended use, No. 21 will be promptly leased to generate further revenue for the preservation of our institution.
Notes Gothamist: "Guess the stories about Cooper Union being broke were true."