Brooklyn Commons, formerly MetroTech Center, is a business and educational center in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. Location Brooklyn Commons lies between Flatbush Avenue Extension and Jay Street, north of the Fulton Street Mall and south of Tillary Street, close to Brooklyn's Civic Center (Borough Hall and the courts) and Brooklyn Heights. The complex is above the Jay Street–MetroTech station of the New York City Subway, served by the . It is the nation's largest urban academic-industrial research park. History The 1980s and 1990s were a period of major large-scale development activity and renewal in Downtown Brooklyn. The MetroTech Center office complex was at the center of this revitalization and within walking distance of several other major development projects including Pierrepont Plaza, the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, Atlantic Terminal Mall, and Renaissance Plaza. MetroTech was controversial when it was created because it involved the demolition of over 100 homes and 50 businesses. As part of an effort to resuscitate Downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s, George Bugliarello, a professor at the nearby Polytechnic Institute, had advanced an idea to create a center for research and development along the lines of the development then starting in Silicon Valley in California. About a decade later the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, like several other scientific and engineering organizations, was unsuccessfully seeking locations for expansion in Manhattan matching their needs and budget. When the AIAA chose to relocate to Washington D.C. due to lack of suitable space in New York, Bugliarello, who had by then become the President of Polytechnic, decided to try again to put his idea of a technology-centered development in Brooklyn into action. A few years later, New York City agreed to designate what had then become Polytechnic University as the main sponsor of the urban renewal project that would become MetroTech, under the condition that there would be at least two other tenants. The city and Polytechnic chose Forest City Enterprises as the project’s main developer based on its years of experience, commitment to stay in the area, and financial capacity. Forest City's co-founder Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden put together a public-private partnership and quickly redefined the MetroTech vision from a research and development park to a campus-centered back office complex. As Forest City negotiated with Morgan Stanley, two other major corporate players were being considered for the site: the Securities Industry Automation Corporation