New York University is planning to build a new center to study children and will be beefing up its psychiatric research and clinical work in child and adolescent studies with $200 million.

Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, and the president of NYU, John Sexton, are scheduled to gather this morning at the school’s existing child study center to announce a “$200 million plan to create the largest children’s mental health facility in the world,” according to a press advisory.

Mr. Pataki will be announcing a $30 million state grant. It is unclear where the remaining money is coming from and how much is from public coffers.

According to the advisory, the $30 million “state commitment” will go toward the creation of a state “Center for Excellence” within the Child Study Center. The new 120,000-square-foot Child Study Center is being billed as the largest child and adolescent psychiatric treatment, research, and training center in the world. Once constructed, it will include 12 laboratories and 500 staff and faculty members.

In addition to the work the center already does – which focuses on everything from behavior and emotional disorders to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder – the center will add an eating disorder program, an autism center, and a lab for public school students at risk for violence and conduct disorders, according to a description included with the press advisory. The description also states that more than $100 million in private philanthropy will be included.

“It’s a very exciting opportunity to be advancing this kind of state-of-theart facility in this area of health,” said a board member at of the Child Study Center, Larry Silverstein, who is also the main developer of the World Trade Center site.

Mr. Silverstein and others said the director and founder of the center, Dr. Harold Koplewicz, has done “extraordinary” work. Dr. Koplewicz, who was not available to talk yesterday, has been described by some as “aggressive” in building up the child mental health programs since he founded it in 1998. It also studies and treats post traumatic stress disorders, depression, and dozens of other conditions.

The center’s most recent annual awards dinner, held at Cipriani 42nd Street in November, brought out heavy hitters from the real estate, media, and political communities, including Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Silverstein, Ann Curry, Al Roker, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and board members like Governor Corzine of New Jersey, according to one Web site. The event reportedly raised $4 million. According to a social calendar item in The New York Times, tickets this year to the event, which honored the chairman and CEO of NBC Universal, Bob Wright, were sold for $2,500.

The driving force behind the center’s successful fund raising is said to be the chairwoman of the center’s board of directors, Brooke Garber Neidich, who is also a vice chairwoman on the board of trustees at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Ms. Garber Neidich declined to comment yesterday in advance of the announcement scheduled for today. According to the center’s Web site, it has received more than $35 million in research grants in the six years since it was created, and its faculty has published 300 peer-reviewed journal articles.

“Starting with a total research portfolio of under $1 million with all research focused on ADHD, the Center has experienced tremendous growth in the past 6 years,” the Web site states.