AJ Capital Partners and Cornell University are announcing plans to build a hotel on the university’s new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Cornell Tech will open the first phase of the new campus September 2017. Opening in 2019, the hotel will create a living room for NYC’s tech community and extend the impact of the Cornell Tech campus.
AJ Capital Partners will open Graduate Roosevelt Island, a 196-room ground-up hotel development with panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline, in 2019. Designed by architectural firm Snohetta, the hotel will be located in the heart of the campus alongside the Verizon Executive Education Center, which will have conference, executive program and academic workshop space, and is also opening in 2019.
“Graduate Roosevelt Island is the type of transformative project that has come to epitomize our company,” Ben Weprin, founder and CEO of AJ Capital Partners, said in a statement. “The hotel will sit prominently at the gateway to Cornell Tech, the most innovative academic campus in the world; and will offer guests, campus visitors and Roosevelt Island citizens a truly distinctive and unique experience. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Cornell University and to introduce Graduate Hotels to New York City.”
Graduate Hotels are part of a curated collection of hotels that reside in university-anchored markets across the country. Locations include Ann Arbor, Mich.; Athens, Ga.; Charlottesville, Va.; Madison, Wis.; Oxford, Miss.; and Tempe, Ariz.; as well as Berkeley, Calif.; Lincoln, Neb.; Minneapolis, Minn; and Richmond, Va.; slated to open in 2017, and Bloomington, Ind.; and Seattle, Wash. in 2018.
The hotel’s residential aesthetic will reference the history of Roosevelt Island, while also capturing the spirit of innovation inspired by the Cornell Tech campus. The property will include a full-service restaurant, rooftop bar with views of Manhattan and 5,200 square feet of meeting and event facilities for hotel guests and the Roosevelt Island community.
Opening September 2017, the first phase of Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus will include three buildings: The Bloomberg Center, the campus’ first academic building; The Bridge, a building for companies to locate on campus; and The House, a residential building for students, faculty and staff that aims to become the world’s first high-rise residential building constructed to “Passive House” energy efficiency standards.
When fully completed, the campus will span 12 acres on Roosevelt Island and house approximately 2,000 students and hundreds of faculty and staff. The campus master plan was designed by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with James Corner Field Operations.