Cornell NYC Tech Roosevelt Island Land Use Review Begins Today - Phase 1 Includes Academic, Residence, Corporate Co-Location Buildings And Hotel/Executive Education Center

The Cornell NYC Tech Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) officially began today with certification by NYC Planning Department. As reported in this October 15 Cornell NYC Tech Press Release:

Cornell Tech today enters the seven-month land use review process for its new tech campus in New York City. The Roosevelt Island campus will sit on a 12-acre site and is slated to open in 2017, with full build out in 2037.

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To mark the beginning of the process, Cornell Tech released new images of the campus, highlighted by preliminary renderings of its first academic building with plans to create a net-zero energy development.

“Just as Cornell Tech will be pioneering new approaches to graduate research and education, our campus won’t look like any other university campus that exists today,” said Daniel Huttenlocher, Dean of Cornell Tech. “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 campus is being designed to connect with the city and with Roosevelt Island, welcoming the public via a new north-south pedestrian spine that opens onto a series of central open spaces

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accessible to the public, capturing breathtaking views of the Manhattan and Queens skylines and linking to the Southpoint and new Four Freedoms parks at the Island’s southern tip. Its buildings will be designed to seamlessly connect outdoor and indoor spaces,

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highlighted by a large public café on the ground floor of the academic building that spills into the open space in good weather. The current plan to achieve net-zero energy for the academic building is via a rooftop photovoltaic canopy that will generate much of the energy needed to make it one of the largest energy-neutral buildings in the U.S. The campus master plan is being designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP, with the first academic building being designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and Morphosis Architects.

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“While we officially start the public review process today, Cornell Tech has worked hard over the past nine months to create a robust dialogue with our new neighbors on Roosevelt Island and across the city,” said Cathy Dove, Vice President of Cornell Tech. “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.”

Construction on Roosevelt Island is expected to begin in 2014, with the first phase of the campus due to open in 2017. The first phase of the campus is expected to include the first academic building, a corporate co-location building, an executive education center with hotel facilities, a residential building for students and faculty and 125,000 square feet of public open space. At full build in 2037, the campus will include up to 2.1 million square feet of development, housing approximately 2,000 full-time graduate students.

The start of the public review process for the Roosevelt Island campus is another major milestone for Cornell Tech. The campus is now accepting applications for a “beta” class of computer science master of engineering students, which will begin classes in January in temporary space donated by Google in Chelsea. The campus soon will be launching additional academic programs, is actively recruiting star faculty, developing a distinctive new model of tech entrepreneurship, and designing its permanent campus on Roosevelt Island. Earlier this month, Cornell Tech announced a first of its kind partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce to bring full-time U.S. Patent and Trademark Office personnel to the campus to promote innovation and economic development.

Cornell University, with its academic partner the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, was selected in December 2011 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to build the applied science and engineering campus, currently located in Chelsea until the permanent campus opens. The new campus is offering a distinctive model of graduate tech education that fuses educational excellence with real-world commercial applications and entrepreneurship, rooted in the latest academic research. Students, faculty and industry experts will learn and work together to launch ideas and create new ventures that have global impact. The campus will attract the best and brightest in technology, immerse them in an entrepreneurial culture with deep ties to the local business community, and spur the creation of new companies and new industries in New York City. The updated campus master plan and preliminary renderings of the first academic building released today reflect Cornell Tech’s commitment to innovation not only in the academic program for the campus but also in its physical development.

During the October 3 Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Common Council meeting, Cornell NYC Tech Vice President Cathy Dove outlined the ULURP Land Use time line for the project.



According to the October 2012 Cornell NYC Tech Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Executive Summary (Page 7):

... As shown in the figure, the Phase 1 buildings, which would include academic, corporate co-location, residential, and Executive Education Center buildings, would be developed in the northern portion of the project site. The Phase 1 central utility plant would be located toward the northern edge of the site.

Open space would also be included as part of Phase 1. Specifically, Phase 1 would include: 

• A Cornell building for academic purposes. This building is anticipated to be approximately 150,000 gsf in size and could be up to 8 stories in height. At this time, designs for this building reflect an academic building that has a 30,150 sf footprint and is five stories tall (approximately 70 feet, 77 feet including the building canopy).
• A corporate co-location building. This building is anticipated to be approximately 150,000 sf in size and could be up to 8 stories in height. This building would house approximately 100,000 sf of corporate co-location use and 50,000 sf of academic space. At this time, designs for this building reflect a corporate co-location building that has a 35,000 sf footprint and is five stories tall (approximately 80 feet).
• A residential building of approximately 300,000 sf for campus faculty and students. This building is anticipated to be up to approximately 30 stories in height (approximately 320 feet) with current designs showing a 10,800 sf footprint.
• An Executive Education Center. This building would be approximately 170,000 sf in size with up to 225 hotel rooms. The conference facility would occupy approximately 25,000 gsf of the building. It is anticipated that the hotel would rise up to approximately 17 stories (200 feet) and have a 20,500 sf footprint.

Approximately 10,000 gsf of campus-oriented retail would be included on the site and could include uses such as a restaurant, cafés, newsstand, or bookstore.

The central utility plant would house in-coming utility services and provide space for centralized electric production or co-generation facilities. As discussed above, Cornell has set a goal to achieve net-zero energy consumption for its Phase 1 academic building. To meet this goal, an array of photovoltaic (PV) panels may be constructed above the roof of the academic building; it may also extend over a portion of the central spine (creating a canopy), and possibly continue over the roof of the corporate co-location building (see Figure S-6).

The open space to be developed as part of Phase 1 would total 1.3 acres. Portions of the southern portion of the project site are anticipated to be developed with several interim uses, potentially including a nursery and other vegetated surfaces (such as a planted meadow). As part of Phase 1, the roadway circling the project site would be widened with temporary construction to provide a functional 32-foot-wide travelway around the project site. The portion of the roadway adjacent to the Phase 1 development would be built to final conditions as the Phase 1 buildings are completed.....

Click Image To Enlarge Phase 1 Illustrative Site Plan (Page 7 Executive Summary)

Executive Summary Page 6 (Click To Enlarge)

Below is the anticipated Cornell NYC Tech construction schedule (Page EIS Ch 20 Page 4)

and plans for delivery access to the Roosevelt Island site (EIS Ch 20 Page 5-6):

... Roosevelt Island is served by the Roosevelt Island Bridge, which has a 36-ton-gross vehicle weight restriction. Therefore, as in other construction projects on Roosevelt Island, all trucks used for construction of the proposed project would meet this weight requirement. At limited times during construction, if a large piece of construction equipment (i.e., tower crane) could not be transported over the Roosevelt Island Bridge due to the weight restriction, the equipment would be transported via barges. Cornell is assessing the feasibility of barging as an alternative to truck material deliveries. However, no practical and feasible methods of barging have been identified at this time....

The entire Cornell NYC Tech EIS is here. It is voluminous with lots of information about the project.

The NY Times reported today on Cornell NYC Tech's plans:

A canopy of solar cells, a nearly classroom-free academic center, cafes open to the public and even a hotel. The new campus of the Cornell University graduate school for technology is expected to transform Roosevelt Island from a sleepy bedroom community into a high-technology hothouse, and indeed, the plans to be formally unveiled for the campus on Monday bear little resemblance to anything that is there now....

and included these comments from Roosevelt Islanders:

... The island is traversed by one central road, Main Street, and accessible by car by the Roosevelt Island Bridge, which connects it to Queens. University officials said they planned to bring construction and demolition materials by road, rather than barge, which they said would greatly increase the cost.

That could turn out to be the most controversial aspect of the project. Noise from garbage trucks is already a problem, as is gridlock, said Frank Farance, 54, the chairman of the planning committee of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.

“I think the community will have strong opposition to having the roads tied up that way,” Mr. Farance said. Also, he said, the bridge ramps and roads seem unlikely to hold up under the increased traffic. It would be foolhardy, he said, to depend on “this very weak infrastructure that might fall apart.”

Still, Oscar Hernandez, the manager of Nonno’s Focacceria and Pizzeria on Main Street, was hopeful. “We expect to have a lot more business with Cornell,” he said. Mr. Hernandez said he was not concerned that the campus would have cafes open to the public. “We make good food here,” he said.

Click here for the entire NY Times article.

CBS News reported:

... Andrew Winters, who's spearheading the planning for Cornell Tech, declined to say how much the campus is expected to cost. Developers would pay to put up some of the buildings — those intended for companies' and nonprofits' use — and then would recoup money by leasing them to Cornell and other tenants, officials said....

On October 22, Cornell will present their plans to the Community Board 8 Roosevelt Island Task Force at the Manhattan Park Theater Club on Roosevelt Island.

UPDATE 10/16 - WCBS TV video interview with Roosevelt Island residents on Cornell NYC Tech project.