Borrowing a page from his predecessor Mike Bloomberg’s playbook, Mayor de Blasio on Tuesday announced that the city will put up $100 million to create a biotech hub on Manhattan’s East Side or across the river in Long Island City, Queens.
The move is modeled on the Bloomberg-initiated applied sciences and engineering hub at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island, and is part of a wider $500 million plan to attract biotech firms to the city.
The funding includes $300 million in tax incentives spread out over 25 years to encourage the construction of commercial labs and research centers.
City officials believe the project could create 9,000 biotech jobs and 7,000 related positions over 10 years.