Cornell University's Bid To Develop Tech Campus On Roosevelt Island Just Improved

Earlier this year, New York City promoted an effort to redevelop a portion of Roosevelt Island as a tech campus/incubator for tech firms. Several major universities submitted bids, including Cornell University and Stanford. The Cornell bid was a joint effort between Cornell and Israel's Technion University.

Stanford has dropped out of the running.

The university and its Board of Trustees "have determined that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity," according to a press release from Stanford that just landed in the Curbed inbox. Stanford had submitted a 600-page proposal for a $2.5 billion, 10-acre campus (rendered at right) housing 200 faculty and 2,000 students that would open in 2016 and take 30 years to develop. But apparently "the university could not be certain that it could proceed in a way that ensured the success of the campus" and so decided to withdraw.

This decidedly improves the chances that the Cornell bid wins. I don't give Columbia University's bid much of a chance, since the university has been busy trying to expand its campus in Washington Heights and needs to devote its resources there; a Roosevelt Island campus would be a distraction to the efforts already underway.