By Rich Bockmann
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and university officials inked a deal last week to formally hand over 12 acres on Roosevelt Island to CornellNYCTech, the engineering school expected to provide a boon to western Queens’ burgeoning tech scene.
Bloomberg met at City Hall with Cornell University President David Skorton and Peretz Lavie, president of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to sign a 99-year lease between the city and Cornell Tech, which is expected to put shovels in the ground in January.
“Somebody asked me what happened after 99 years, and I didn’t want to be blasé or wise-ass about it, but I did think to myself, ‘I don’t care,’” Bloomberg joked at the news conference. “Hopefully, whoever’s around then will figure it out.”
A number of sites across the city — including, briefly, Willets Point — were being talked about as possible homes for the campus when the New York City Economic Development Corp. issued a request for proposals in 2011 for an applied sciences school in the five boroughs.
But when CornellTech’s plan to build on Roosevelt Island was selected, it was not a total loss for Queens.
Long Island City has an up-and-coming tech scene, and the borough’s high-tech businesses are looking to leverage their proximity to the island to their advantage.
Bloomberg said that by the time Phase 1 is completed in 2017, the project will add thousands of jobs in the city — not only in tech and academia, but in the wide variety of support sectors that go along with the campus such as construction and building services.
The campus is also expected to be one of the greenest ever. Bloomberg said its academic center will be a net-zero energy building, creating all the energy it will need on its own.
Skorton, Cornell’s president, said the campus will reflect the partners’ bold vision.
“Today’s lease-signing paves the way for construction to begin in just a few weeks. A school focused on innovation should, of course, reflect our ambition and commitment to excellence, so we’ve brought together award-winning architects and given them a mandate to create … the most sustainable, innovative and ground-breaking campus in the United States,” he said. “When it opens in 2017, the Roosevelt Island campus will be like no other.”
CornellTech students began taking classes earlier this year in space donated by Google at its headquarters in Chelsea.
By the time the entire 2-million-square-foot campus is completed in 2043, it will house about 2,000 students and nearly 280 faculty members.
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
