Mayor Eric Adams and leaders from the City University of New York (CUNY) announced Wednesday a major expansion of Hostos Community College with a new life sciences facility inside the nearby historic Bronx General Post Office building.
The around $70 million renovation project will transform nearly 200,000 square feet of vacant space at the “New Deal” era building to include state-of-the-art labs, classrooms, offices and common spaces.
City officials, CUNY leaders, Hostos students and faculty celebrated the announcement inside the vast, soon-to-be renovated space with food, music and remarks from the team collaborating on the project. Mayor Adams said that he hoped the new facility would do more than increase enrollment or replace aging equipment.
“ We hope it will serve and help students enter high paying careers within the city and within the state,” Adams said. “Because every young person deserves to participate in the American dream and not live within an unsustainable nightmare that they don’t believe the future belongs to them because it does.”
The new space will combine the Allied Health and Natural Sciences departments which offer degree programs in disciplines like nursing, dental hygiene, radiologic technology, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering.
Steven Martinez, a mechanical engineering student at Hostos, told the Bronx Times that he hopes a new space can help to inspire students to see themselves in STEM careers.
“ I think coming out of high school, especially, a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, I hate math class, I hate science class,’” Martinez said. “And I think that stems from not having the resources to learn to appreciate it.”
He said that “He said that a modern space with up-to-date labs could show students what’s possible in their fields.
“ I think higher education should be about passion as much as finding your future,” Martinez said. “And that’s kind of what STEM can do for someone— providing them with that future.”
Layla Morrison, a first-semester student in the Licensed Practical Nursing program at Hostos, said that a new building would give students access to the technology and training they’ll need once they graduate.
“We’re all really excited to have the new addition at Hostos,” Morrison said. “It’s going to really improve our studies and give us more opportunities.”
Those opportunities, Adams said, have too often been concentrated in other boroughs.
“ Why the hell did this post office remain vacant all this time?” Adams said. “It would not have remained vacant in central Manhattan, but people wanted to ignore this borough.”
Hostos’s expansion marks a significant step in repurposing the historical landmark, which has sat largely empty for more than 10 years, since it was first purchased by a real estate developer from the post office. Now, the building is owned by real estate developer Maddd Equities, a prominent yet controversial player in Bronx development.
The company and its leadership, Jorge Madruga, came under fire recently for their involvement in rehabbing another historic landmark in the borough, the Kingsbridge Armory. In April, a rival bidder for the city contract to redevelop the armory accused a Maddd Equities affiliate and Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson of political favoritism and corruption in a lawsuit.
But city officials told the Bronx Times that the developer will independently fund all renovations without additional city or state funding outside of the cost to lease the space, which city documents show is $15.5 million per year with an annual increase of 3%.
CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said that such an investment meant supporting individual lives across the borough.
“ This investment is going to allow us to have a larger class of talented, hardworking nursing students that come from the background that we all have,” Rodríguez said. “That are going to have cultural competence; that are going to be able to talk to the patients in their own language; that are going to understand their culture.”
Samantha Lopez, a 30-year-old mother of two who lives in the community and returned to Hostos to pursue a second degree in the Registered Nursing program, told the Bronx Times that she specifically chose Hostos College because it was welcoming to people of all different cultures.
“It doesn’t matter what your background is, everyone deserves an education,” Lopez said.
She said that even though the new life sciences facility would not be open by the time she finished her RN program with Hostos, she was still excited about what a state-of-the-art facility could mean for other students in the Bronx.
“Expanding into a new building is important to me because it means more students can come in,” Lopez said. “There will be more enrollment and more opportunities to better your life and go to school.”
Lopez said that she knows her education at Hostos will prepare her to be a good healthcare professional. She put it in terms that people from the South Bronx would understand.
“ If a patient is experiencing an asthma attack, the medication of choice would be Albuterol to save that patient,” Lopez said. “It’s always going to be Albuterol whether I went to Hostos or I went to Yale, whether I went to Princeton, or I went to NYU. So, to me it does not matter. The answer will always be the answer no matter what college I go to. I’m proud of where I come from; I’m proud of where I graduated from.”
