Turning New York into the East Coast Silicon Valley
Seven universities have submitted proposals for the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s competition to build a new science and technology based graduate school. The two schools garnering the most attention are Stanford University and Cornell University, both with Roosevelt Island in their sights.
Cornell University's proposed plans, with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill as architects, for their NYC Tech Campus include a 150,000 square foot net-zero building with four acres of solar panels and 500 geothermal wells. Cornell promises their building will be 'the largest net-zero energy building in the eastern United States'. According to Kent Kleinman, dean of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, the school "wanted to do something that would demonstrate our values and that would also reflect the things actually being researched inside. LEED Gold and Platinum are nice but it’s better to generate as much energy as you consume.”
StanfordNYC, Stanford University's proposal for the Roosevelt Island site, focuses on their expertise in generating economic growth in the technology sector, pledging a two hundred million dollar investment for start-up costs. Their own goals for sustainability include LEED Platinum certification, but Standford's main focus is translating teaching and education into capital.
In light of the emphasis on sustainability, Julie V. Iovine astutely points out that neither Cornell nor Stanford's plans consider retrofitting the existing Goldwater Hospital buildings on the site.
The development is projected to generate six billion dollars in economic activity, thousands of jobs, and over one billion dollars in tax revenues. The project also comes with one hundred million dollars for infrastructure funds. The city of New York expects to make a decision by the end of 2011.
Via: ArchitectsNewspaper, NYTimes
Images: Cornell University, Stanford University
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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com