NYC Receives Seven Responses for Applied Sciences Campus

Seven educational institutions including Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, and Stanford University have responded to Applied Sciences NYC’s Oct. 28 deadline in a request for proposals to build or expand a state-of-the-art engineering and applied sciences campus in New York City in exchange for access to city-owned land and up to $100 million in city capital, says the office of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Applied Sciences NYC is an initiative created by the city that is expected to help drive the economy.

According to the New York Economic Development Corp., the new applied sciences campus will generate an estimated $6 billion in overall economic activity across the five boroughs over the next 35 years and will help create more than 30,000 permanent and construction jobs.

Cornell is proposing a 150,000-sq-ft, net-zero energy building to be built on Roosevelt Island that will include 500,000 sq ft of green space open to the public, a solar array, and four acres of geothermal wells that will heat and cool the campus. The building will be home to the Cornell and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology partnership. The project was designed and developed by the New York City office of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, and aims to be the largest net-zero energy building in the eastern U.S.

Stanford’s proposal calls for construction of StanfordNYC, an applied sciences and engineering campus also to be built on Roosevelt Island. Stanford’s 30-year development plan includes a $2.5 billion, 1.9-million-sq-ft campus that will focus on graduate-level teaching and research and is expected to house more than 200 faculty members and more than 2,000 students when completed.

Proposals are currently being reviewed by city officials in consultation with members of the Applied Sciences NYC Advisory Committee. They will make an award based on criteria such as the likelihood of developing research that will lead to new and expanded companies in industries that demonstrate the most growth potential, the likelihood of construction and permanent job creation and tax revenue, potential for developing a self-sustaining campus, and the likely contributions to the diversification of New York City’s economy.

The city should make a decision by the beginning of next year, says a spokesperson for NYCEDC.