New York campus bid to be innovation capital

Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's winning plan for a $1.5 billion, environmentally-friendly applied sciences and engineering university in New York could thrust the city to the forefront of high-tech development. Silicon Valley has been warned to brace itself.

The American-Israeli partnership emerged triumphant last month following a year-long international competition to build a New York institution to rival Stanford, which withdrew from the contest at the last minute.

When ground was broken last year for a memorial park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, a sliver of land in the East River connected by cable car and subway to Manhattan, New Yorkers nodded with approval over the beautification of an island that a century ago housed the city's orphaned, sick and mentally ill.

When the park opens later this year, developers will be poised anew to begin building the new campus that will bolster higher education in a city looking for a new cutting edge.

Officially called NYCTech Campus, the project is expected to be completed by 2027. "We are not going to have an extension of the Technion or Cornell," said Technion President Peretz Lavie. "We are going to have something new."

As the reputable Cornell and Technion schools combine forces to create this truly new learning space, 185,800 square metres of it, what the project symbolises is New York City's commitment and willingness to promote technology and research-oriented development.

Kim Tuby, vice president and senior analyst for Moody's Investors Service, a credit rating, research and risk analysis agency, said: "Over the long run of a decade or more, it could provide a new centre of high-tech growth for the city that would further diversity its image and sources of growth."

In many cities in the United States, higher education and health care sectors account for the largest employers and directly offer more job growth and more stability than most other industries, he explained, adding that research universities also offer the opportunity for cities to generate employment through 'spin-offs' of new technology-based businesses.

In Israel, an estimated 4,000 start-ups have been set up around Technion, creating an area similar to America's Silicon Valley.

"New York City is trying to capitalise on this well-established trend," Tuby said. "If successful, the project will enhance the city's reputation as a higher education and research centre, which will be positive not just for the city, but for other universities in the New York metropolitan area that are seeking to attract talented faculty and students, as well as private donors and government research grants."

Because the higher education sector is a comparatively small part of the city's economy now, the impact will be larger when viewed just from the perspective of higher education rather than from the city's overall economic position.

"The city's economy is already huge and well diversified and it would take a long time before the Cornell-Technion development would have a major impact on the city's economy," said Tuby.

At any rate, the project is expected to generate more than $23 billion in economic activity and $1.4 billion in tax revenue. Crunching the numbers, the project also means a boost in jobs and what Tuby called spin-offs, with an estimated 20,000 construction jobs, 8,000 permanent jobs and 600 new businesses that would create an additional 30,000 jobs.

A game-changer

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was thrilled to announce the winning bid. "Today will be remembered as a defining moment," he said. "In a word, this project is going to be transformative. It really is a game-changer."

Cornell President David Skorton agreed, saying he hoped the campus would turn New York into the innovation capital of the world. "This is not a moment for a touchdown dance for Cornell or Technion. This is a moment for a touchdown dance for New York City."

The nuts and bolts of the proposal led the mayor to select it over other plans submitted by six higher education institutions. The eye-catching campus, which will host 2,500 students and 280 professors, will feature sloping metallic panels that look like giant silver dominoes, built to generate solar power, and shadowed by state-of-the-art research towers.

Environmental experts have already praised the plans for their ingenuity. The Cornell-Technion proposal would combine cutting edge technologies to create one of the most environmentally friendly and energy efficient campuses in the world.

The proposed phase one academic building, if completed today, would be the largest net-zero energy building in the eastern United States, meaning that it will harvest as much energy from solar power and geothermal wells as it consumes on an annual basis.

A solar array will generate 1.8 megawatts and a 400 well geothermal field, cooling buildings in summer and heating them in winter. The campus will employ some of the most sophisticated environmental technology in the world and help develop them, serving as a living laboratory for the built environment hub.

Organised around three interdisciplinary hubs, the campus will feature connective media, healthier life and the built environment.

Cornell will immediately offer masters and doctoral degrees in areas such as computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and information science and engineering. In addition, after receiving the required accreditation, the campus will offer innovative Cornell-Technion dual master of applied sciences degrees.

Bold plan won the contest

It was Cornell and Technion's bold and assertive plan for such a campus that won them the contract, with Bloomberg saying that the team triumphed because the proposal would be able to accommodate the most students and in most aggressive time frame.

What amounted to a bidding war saw Cornell and Technion fight off stiff competition from institutions including Stanford University, Columbia University, New York University and Carnegie Mellon University.

In a neck-and-neck finish, Cornell-Technion announced the receipt of a $350 million gift from alumnus Charles Feeney, cofounder of Duty Free Shopper, just a few hours after Stanford University said it was withdrawing from the competition.

Moody's stated that Stanford's withdrawal was a positive move as a non-New York State university. Cornell had established a presence in the city, where its campuses already served students, alumni and a donor base. Likewise Technion, an Israeli science college that saw one of its professors Dan Schechtman awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry this year.

"This is a momentous day catapulting New York City into the forefront of the 21st century economy and burnishing its place as the high-tech centre of the east," said US Senator Charles E Schumer.

He said this was just the first step, the end of the beginning, of what needs to be an ongoing, multi-year effort to make New York not just one of, but the high tech center for innovation. "Look out Silicon Valley, look out Boston," Schumer said. "New York will be second to none."

Whether that challenge will materialise now rests on Cornell and Technion.