City's plan for $1.2B "NYCTech Campus"

In what Mayor Michael Bloomberg called a "game changer" for the New York regional economy, city officials announced Monday a $1.2 billion plan to convert a hospital site on Roosevelt Island into a world-class applied science graduate campus.

Both Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology were selected to spearhead the project to create a new school that Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes will be a beehive of technical innovation aimed at helping the city's industries and create new start-up digital businesses.

"By adding a new state-of-the art institution to our landscape, we will educate tomorrow's entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future," Bloomberg said at a news conference at Weill-Cornell Medical College. "This partnership has so much promise."

Construction of the 11-acre "NYCTech Campus" is expected to take more than 30 years to complete at a cost of more than $1 billion, with the city providing $100 million for capital infrastructure construction. It would transform the site of the current Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility, which is slated for closure in coming months into what Cornell president David J. Skorton said would be one of the most environmentally friendly and energy-efficient campuses in the world. Cornell and Technion became partners in a city competition among several institutions of higher learning.

Construction would be phased in, with some initial off-site facilities opening next year and 300,000 square feet built by 2017. The full 2-million-square-foot campus is expected to be completed by 2037. By 2043, the project hopes to have housing for 2,800 students and 280 faculty, officials estimated.

Bloomberg said 20,000 construction jobs would be created as well as 8,000 permanent jobs at the school. City officials also estimated the new campus would generate $23 billion in overall economic activity over the next three decades and $1.4 billion in tax revenue.

"Today will be remembered as a defining moment," Bloomberg said.

Full details on funding were unclear Monday. Cornell recently received a gift of $350 million that is earmarked for the project, and Skorton indicated that philanthropic contributions, tuition and grants would be tapped for additional funding. Bloomberg said the current patient load at the 1,000-bed Coler-Goldwater facility is slated to be transferred to a Harlem hospital.