On March 20, New York City’s Planning Commission approved Cornell NYC Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus plan as part of the city public land use review process. The plan now continues to the final stage in the process with review by the City Council.

Approval by the planning commission was another major milestone for the campus. Cornell Tech welcomed its first students in January and is rapidly rolling out new academic programs, recruiting faculty, developing a distinctive new model of tech entrepreneurship, and designing its permanent campus on Roosevelt Island.

“We are grateful to Chair [Amanda] Burden and the City Planning Commission for engaging in such a thorough analysis of the campus plan and ultimately offering their full support,” said Cornell Tech Vice President Cathy Dove. “At each step in this review process we have gained valuable insight and been able to improve our plan, and we look forward to continuing that dialogue with the City Council.”

“With the first students and faculty on our current campus in Chelsea, we’re building the new academic model that the campus on Roosevelt Island will support and encourage,” said Cornell Tech Dean Dan Huttenlocher. “I am continually amazed and humbled by the support of the city and the entire tech community as we move forward with the goal of spurring innovation and supporting economic growth in New York and beyond.”

Cornell Tech is offering a distinctive model of graduate tech education that fuses educational excellence with real-world commercial applications and entrepreneurship, rooted in the latest academic research.

The new campus will include up to 2.1 million square feet of development, housing approximately 2,000 full-time graduate students by full build-out in 2037. The first phase will include up to 790,000 square feet of development, including the first academic building.