Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg raised his offer on Tuesday to universities interested in setting up a school of engineering and applied sciences in New York City: along with practically free use of a swath of land, the city will contribute as much as $100 million.
Mr. Bloomberg publicly presented an invitation to universities to bid on the chance to create a campus, either on one of three city-owned properties or elsewhere in the city. Issuing the request for proposals is the latest step officials have taken to try to make New York more competitive with Silicon Valley as a hub for technology-based businesses.
“During the 1980s and ’90s, Silicon Valley — not New York City — became the world’s capital of technology startups, and that is still true today,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a speech at a conference on the city’s future at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Midtown. “But if am right, and if we succeed in this mission, it won’t be true forever.”
City officials say the school could prompt as much as $6 billion in economic activity by creating 30,000 temporary and permanent jobs and, more important, by fostering innovations that could become big businesses. They argue that the city’s financial contribution, which would come from its capital budget over several years, would pay off in increased tax revenue and economic growth.
Mr. Bloomberg said he was encouraged by the “strong response” the city received to a call late last year for schools to express interest in the idea. The city received 18 submissions that involved 27 institutions from around the world — some teamed up to present ideas — and used those ideas to help focus the offer. Among the most enthusiastic bidders were Cornell and Stanford Universities.
In December, the first invitation identified four city-owned properties as potential sites for a new campus: the south end of Roosevelt Island in the East River, part of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, parts of Governors Island in the harbor and the Farm Colony on Staten Island. The Staten Island site has been dropped from consideration because it was not appealing enough to the first respondents, city officials said.
