By TYLER ALICEA
President David Skorton and outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed the 99-year lease for Cornell NYC Tech Thursday, marking another milestone in the development of the campus on Roosevelt Island.
The lease signing in New York City came on the second anniversary of Cornell winning the city’s tech campus competition, which granted the University the right to build the multi-billion dollar applied sciences school on Roosevelt Island. The campus will be “the most innovative and most entrepreneur friendly science campus in the world,” Bloomberg said at Thursday’s press conference.
The 99-year lease transferred a 12-acre parcel of land on Roosevelt Island from NYC to Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology — Cornell’s partner in founding the new campus. The lease signing will allow for construction to begin in just a few weeks in January 2014.
A rendering of Cornell Tech, which will rise on Roosevelt Island. (Courtesy of Cornell University)