By Rebecca Henely
Cornell released plans for the first phase of its applied sciences graduate school on Roosevelt Island Monday, with a rendering of the first academic building to be built out on the new campus in 2017.
The Ithaca, N.Y., institution, which has partnered with Haifa, Israel’s Technion — Israel Institute of Technology to create the campus, said they are presenting the pictures to the public as part of the seven-month land use review process. The Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute’s first academic building is planned to produce as much energy as it consumes.
“Our campus won’t look like any other university campus that exists today,” Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the new campus, said in a statement. “We are determined to innovate in every aspect of the development, from the way that students, faculty, researchers, industry and the local community are intermingled, to the sustainability of our buildings and their iconic architecture.”
The first phase of the campus, with construction set to begin in 2014 and the opening scheduled for 2017, includes an academic building with a rooftop photovoltaic canopy that will create the same amount of solar energy as the building is expected to use. Also in that timeframe, a corporate co-location building, an executive education center that includes hotel facilities and a building for students and faculty to live will be built. The first phase includes 125,000 square feet of open space as well.
The entire campus is expected to be fully built out in 2037. At that time the campus will house about 2,000 full-time graduate students.
Cornell said the buildings will be constructed amid several central open spaces that will give students and faculty views of both the Queens and Manhattan skylines.
“The campus plan was designed to be open to everyone, and we look forward to sharing this unique vision with all New Yorkers over the next seven months and beyond,” Cathy Dove, vice president of the new campus, said in a statement.
The Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute is being built after its parent institutions won a contest held by the city Economic Development Corp. and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, challenging universities to create a graduate school that will be a job magnet in exchange for free real estate and $100 million in city capital. Elected officials and business leaders from Long Island City advocated for the campus to be built at Roosevelt Island, given its proximity to the neighborhood and accessibility via public transportation.
The new school is accepting applications for its first class, which will be held in January in Web giant Google’s Chelsea offices in Manhattan.
Reach reporter Rebecca Henely by e-mail at rhenely@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
