Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams Announce Groundbreaking for First-of-its-Kind Jobs and Education Hub, Celebrate Four Years o Delivering[...]

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball, and The City University of New York (CUNY) Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez celebrated progress on the Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) Kips Bay project, a first-of-its-kind life sciences innovation, career, and education hub. Deconstruction of the current campus on the site is expected to begin in February 2026, with construction of the new SPARC campus expected to begin in 2027. Today's announcement is yet another example of the successful city-state partnership Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul have achieved for the last four years working together to address the affordability crisis, create new housing, lower taxes, and advance bold infrastructure projects.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page has photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Thank you, Chancellor. And I appreciate your enthusiasm, your drive, your energy, all things CUNY. And yes, you come to my office often with your handout and I don't think you're too disappointed - at least if you are, don't tell me. But it's an investment that makes sense, when you think about, you know, investing in education means you're investing in people.

And you did reference my own family circumstances. The story is - and you know my father and mother lived in a trailer park. My brother was born a year older than I am, and they could have stayed in that trailer park while dad worked at the steel plant, except he was able to get an education at night - walking out the door, leaving my mom with that little baby in this tiny space where they lived. And I've been back there many times to see that neighborhood, but that education unlocked opportunities for him that otherwise would not have been there. And my story has changed dramatically from what it could have been. So, I'm grateful for those who open up those opportunities, and I'm proud to be a Governor who is able to do that, working with great leaders like our Chancellor here, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, and also the partnership with the City of New York, which has been extraordinary and I'll speak about that.

Also I do want to recognize that labor is here, Gary LaBarbera and the men and women of labor. I want to thank you because when you're involved, I know it's going to be high quality, the work is going to get done, and we have a lot more projects to work on together. And I thank our other elected officials here, but it's great to be back here. I think it was maybe October of 2022, Mayor? We stood here with a lot of money coming out of our pockets. So, I was a brand new Governor. I was like, you sure we can afford this? And the Mayor was on board. I was on board. So, we matched a significant contribution to make this become a reality.

But it's joining the people of New York to do something which is so natural for New Yorkers - to dream big, to think about all the possibilities, the great thoughts. It doesn't happen elsewhere, and that is what sets us apart from every other city and every other state in America, because we have that capacity, that wild ambition that many often will say, that's not going to happen. We say, "We will find a path and it will happen." Today is the culmination of that belief, that dream of so many others as we stand here, breaking ground on SPARC Kips Bay. And I'm grateful that the ground is inside and not outside today; although, I'm from Buffalo, I'm not sure what the problem was being outside. I just want to - got to toughen up the team.

We think about - let's go back a little down memory lane, Mr. Mayor. Like we both took office as we were still coming out of a pandemic, the greatest health crisis our nation had seen since the 1917 pandemic, I believe it was hard. It was all consuming. It was like, where are we getting healthcare workers? Where are we getting the PPE from? How are we going to keep people alive? Don't forget the stresses that our healthcare system was under at that moment in history. And it went on for years. And people question our future, really were our best days behind us? And they were wrong. They were so wrong.

And I'm proud that we are able to address this. And the Mayor and I took on this partnership with this sense of we can do this together, we can get through this time, we can restore people's faith and confidence that this city is not going to be kicked down. It's going to rise up. And we work so hard on issues - the healthcare crisis, of course. Our teams working in synergy together.

But also crime was out of control. Something happened during that pandemic, and sociologists can figure this out someday, but there was a crime wave all over America because of the instability created by this. And we had to deal with the effects of that, and people were fearful they weren't going to come back on the subways, even if their job was waiting for them because they were afraid of something terrible happening to them or their family members.

Economic uncertainty, public safety - the city was just reeling for a while there and we just wouldn't accept the narrative. We just rolled up our sleeves, Mayor, and you and I worked hard together and I always will commend your leadership during those dark days. And together, we just delivered the safest year in subway ridership, subway safety in recorded history except for the year after 9/11. Think about that, and we'll say there's going to be a scary picture on the cover of a tabloid tomorrow that shows something bad happened to somebody. It will happen, but that doesn't mean that people are starting to feel more confident because they're coming back to their jobs.

They're coming downtown, they're taking the subway, they're walking the streets, and that didn't happen by wishing it would happen. It was a result of intentional strategies, collaboration, teamwork, a vision of what we can and should be. So we made historic investments in public safety.

The Mayor and I would talk about the need for more housing. The historic "City of Yes" plan was ingenious. I finally said, "Why are we letting all these obstacles, these barriers, hold us back? People want to live here." Young families want to raise their kids here, and we're driving them to other states because we didn't have the ambition that's being on display with this project. We didn't have that with respect to housing for too long. And finally we could do that and I was proud to help support that financially. Although, it was a late night call from the Mayor, asking, "Can I have a billion dollars to get this over the finish line?" And maybe I was still half asleep. I was like, "Sure, Mayor, whatever you want." So message, don't call me late at night because I won't pick up anymore. It's too expensive for me.

But you believed in it? I believed in it. City council - we got it finished and that's why we're going to be unlocking so much more housing. And we've worked focused on economic development and more opportunities. This project here, as far as Kips Bay is just a sign of a $1.6 billion transformation. That sounds like a pipe dream, but it's happening right now. Shovels are in some ground out there. Right, Gary? It's going to happen. And so this is the way it's going to be a world class hub for healthcare, public health, education, life sciences, serving more than 4,500 students in one of the most important fields that's going to determine our future because we know what it's like. When we had a shortage of healthcare workers, it was a scary time for us, and we say no more.

And thank you, Chancellor, for recognizing what we did with the State Budget this year. We said in the five or six fields where we are short workers, what can we do to have an immediate catalyst to get more people to pursue careers in healthcare?

And we said, "Let's pick up the full cost of a community college education." Everything. Books, fees - everything. And you know what? We did that just starting this summer. We already have 16,000 more students going into our public community colleges here and across the state than we would've had. And that is dramatic. And we're just getting started. So those people will get the education they need and they'll be feeling these jobs that are so important for us. So we're going to train together.

Again, I want to thank the union workers for building this. We're going to be continuing to focus on attracting the smartest minds in the nation to this very space. That's what's so exciting to me, too. We're always going to be a magnet. But when you have a catalyst like this - a hub, a place that says we're going to be nation-leading in our research, in our innovation, and what we're going to do here, you're going to attract people from all over the country and indeed the world if they can be let back in.

I deviate. We want them here, by the way. So we're going to continue our investments. We've done it here with our investments across the State of New York. But this is important. And again, it is just a reminder, we don't settle for small ideas. Small ideas are for other people. Don't even bother with this.

If you want to go big, you come to New York. You want to go big, you invest here. When you want to go big, you raise your family here because this is the epicenter of everything that matters and we're going to make sure it remains that way.

And again, I want to thank Mayor Adams for his close partnership with me through some incredible crises that we had to face head on together. And I say our city is safer today, Mayor. We're going to be building more housing. There's more economic development. I personally just want to thank you for your service, a delightful time of public service to this community. Thank you very much.

Let me bring up our Mayor, Eric Adams.

Contact the Governor's Press Office