CUNY Law gets funds to recreate community space
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Queens City Council Member Julie Won secured $6 million in capital to renovate an unused kitchen into community spaces.Photo Courtesy of CUNY School of Law
By Noah Powelson
The city’s only publicly funded law school is getting a multiple million-dollar renovation that will bring new community spaces to students, nonprofits and New Yorkers seeking legal assistance.
Around $6 million in capital funding was allocated to completely renovate a derelict kitchen into new community spaces for the City University New York School of Law. The funding, which comes from the city’s budget passed earlier this year, was secured by Queens City Councilmember Julie Won.
The project, which is supposed to take a little over a year to complete, will dismantle a dilapidated kitchen that currently sits unused in the Long Island City facility. The area is mostly used as a storage space. The site of the renovation is connected to an already set up and actively reserved community space that’s host to frequent seminars and staff meetings.
While the community center will primarily be used by students and faculty, school administrators say the construction will open the doors to deepen the school’s ties with the greater Queens community.
“This $6 million investment will increase our capacity to provide concurrent programming with our many community partners,” CUNY School of Law’s dean, Natalie Gomez-Velez, said. “The fact that we hosted 1,800 community guests in the existing space last year demonstrates our need for this expansion. With this project, we’re not just expanding our physical space, we’re deepening our relationships with community-centered legal education and civic engagement in Queens.”
By the end of the construction, the community space will more than double in size, which administrators say will give students access to updated facilities and allow the school to host more organizations and events. As well as more space, the renovations will bring updated technology and furnishings to other areas.
Space is a premium in the city, and that’s equally true for CUNY School of Law.
In the past year, the school’s administrators said they’ve hosted programs from groups such as First Impressions Youth Legal Collaborative, The Young Debaters Program, a citywide Women and Minority Business Enterprise (WMBE) seminar, multiple Department of Health trainings and CUNY Citizenship Now!
Citizenship Now! provides legal assistance and services for people looking for help with their citizenship application. They are one of the organizations that regularly makes use of CUNY community spaces for workshops and clinics.
One of the current community spaces at CUNY School of Law, which will see a massive expansion and renovation. Eagle photo by Noah Powelson
Gomez-Velez said navigating and organizing the ever-shifting needs of the students and organizations who use the community space for legal clinics, workshops, government agency trainings and so much more puts community spaces in high demand. When the busy seasons roll around, especially during summer or in the middle of the semester, the demand for classrooms, meeting rooms and presentation areas skyrocket.
“It's kind of a Rubik's Cube, I would say, in terms of the use of the building and the space,” Gomez-Velez told the Eagle. “We try to make the best use of our space… But there are times where things are booked up, and we’re always in a position where it would be nice to have more flexibility.”
Deconstruction of the kitchen will begin in the spring of next year. The new community spaces are planned to be opened by the end of 2026.
It took the school administration years of planning and workshoping to find use for the derelict kitchen, which has acted as a large storage unit for years now.
In June 2024, Won had pledged $1.5 million in initial funding to decommission the unused kitchen space. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards gave an additional $1 million in capital funding. Much of the kitchen equipment was repurposed to other CUNY schools.
Decommissioning the space required tearing out piles of old ventilation and kitchen equipment. Creating new meeting areas and office space to accommodate them is an enormous project, and was only finally made possible with the $6 million Won secured last month.
“Our $6 million City Council investment in CUNY Law’s renovation will provide the technology and much-needed space to teach the next generation of lawyers,” Won said in a statement. “I’m happy to continue funding CUNY Law as they provide a world-class, affordable public education and connect New Yorkers to legal resources that center social justice across our city.”
With the funding secured, the next steps are to finalize the plans and organize the construction crews. Details of the renovation timeline will likely become known in the months ahead.
Gomez-Velez said the project wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance of Won, but also the support, collaboration and advocacy of community organizations who understand legal education and representation is needed now more than ever.
“We, like a lot of people, want to be coming together to solve problems, to educate, to engage, to be part of a broader community, consistent with our mission here at the law school,” Gomez-Velez said. “It’s really just a message of gratitude and of looking forward, even in challenging times, to come together and to really like looking at ways of making things better for communities at large.”
