Top U.S. Engineering Schools Make Intense Pitches To Nab A City Campus
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Final proposals are due this Friday from schools seeking to create a new science and engineering campus in New York City, and the competition is heating up. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report. In the not-too-distant future, a large swath of Roosevelt Island currently home to the Goldwater Hospital Campus could become a sprawling Cornell University graduate school focused on technology.
“We have this incredibly entrepreneurial alumni base. We have this incredible sort of academic star power in the technology-related fields that attracts the very best and brightest people, but what we’re lacking right now at the moment is a concentrated urban environment to have as an outlet for that,” said Daniel Huttenlocher of Cornell University.
Cornell is battling several other top-tier universities in a competition designed by the Bloomberg administration. The city will provide essentially free land and up to $100 million worth of infrastructure.
The winning bidder will create a school expected to spawn new high-tech businesses, a new Silicon Valley.
“Our goal is to not just be a leader in innovation in the 21st century, but to be the leader. And in order for us to achieve that goal, we need a critical mass of engineering talent here in the city,” said Seth Pinsky of the New York City Economic Development Corp
The competition is fierce. Stanford, another top contender whose online campaign lists some of the companies it has spawned, recently announced a partnership with City College.
Then there are local schools like Columbia University, which wants to incorporate a tech institute into expansion plans already moving forward in Manhattanville.
“We can start construction right away. We don’t have to go through any permitting process that will be requiring in sites like Roosevelt Island,” said Dean Feniosky Pena-Mora of Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Whoever the winner, the city is expecting big things from what it hopes will become a signature achievement of the Bloomberg administration. The city projects the new campus will create some 30,000 jobs and generate $6 billion in economic activity over the next three decades.
A winner is expected to be named around the end of the year.