Google Opens Door to Cornell in NYC

Cornell University’s new Applied Science campus in New York City will be temporarily housed in property owned by Google, according to a New York Times story this morning.The move will help the University live up to its promise of holding classes in the city this fall. President Skorton said in an interview with the newspaper that students and teachers would travel down from Ithaca for seminars and workshops this fall. Classes will begin in the Google building, located at 111 8th Avenue, in the fall of 2013.

Google bought the property in 2010 for $1.9 billion. Cornell will have access to the top floor, which Google executives have valued at $12 million.

The deal with Google says that we must be out of the building in five and a half years.  This ties in exactly with the fact that Cornell has promised to begin holding classes on Roosevelt Island in 2017. It leaves little room for error, however, throughout the construction process.

Perhaps the most significant implication of this partnership is that it indicates that large technological corporations are behind Cornell (and its Israeli partner Technon) in its quest to establish a stronghold in the New York City High-Tech labor market. Previously, Google had publically announced its support of Stanford University in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s contest for $100 million and the plot of land on Roosevelt Island.

This is not the first time that Cornell and Google have gotten together on a technological endeavor. In January 2011, the Insider reported that Google had given Cornell faculty members $800,000 to research the usefulness of social media networks like Facebook.