Project Overview

The University Center will be the hub of the New School campus: a 16-story, approximately 375,000-square-foot building located at the intersection of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The building has 230,000 square feet of academic space on the first seven floors and 135,000 square feet for a 600-bed dormitory on the remaining nine floors, providing space for all aspects of campus life. There will be an additional 10,000 gross square feet of retail space on the first floor and below street level along 14th Street.

The academic space will include 50,000 square feet of design studios, interdisciplinary classrooms, and laboratories that are easily adaptable to encourage a mix of different disciplines. It will include an 800-seat auditorium, featuring a reconfigurable stage (with 18 electric lifts) that can be set up for dance and musical performances or as a fashion runway; a large cafeteria; a two-story library; a 2,200-square-foot faculty resource center; three student lounges; and a lobby and café on two levels, suitable for performances.

The building will include numerous spaces for informal interaction such as the three central staircases that will weave their way through the building. The University Center will be a hive of activity, visible from the street through large glass windows.

The center will meet LEED Gold standards, making it one of the greenest buildings in New York and one of the greenest academic buildings in the country. The architect of the new University Center is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The developer is The Durst Organization and the construction manager is Tishman Construction Corporation.

Contact Information

For all emergencies, please call 911. To report unsafe conditions at the building work site, please call 311 or Tishman Construction at 212.399.3600. For all other concerns, please call The New School's University Center Hotline at 212.608.7385.