Last week, Cornell University officially kicked off construction of Cornell Tech, a $2 billion science, research and technology campus rising on Roosevelt Island in New York City.
When the first phase of the campus is completed in 2017, it will include three buildings, one of which will be dedicated to business and innovation. When fully completed in 2043, the campus will have 2 million square feet of space on 12 acres serving more than 2,500 graduate students, faculty and staff.
In a city filled with large construction projects—from the $20 billion Hudson Yards development on the far West Side of Manhattan to the $15 billion-plus rebuilding of the World Trade Center—Cornell Tech isn’t one of the biggest deals in New York. But the campus is symbolic of a broader national trend: the rapid expansion of college and university campuses.