Cornell Tech Opens Campus On Roosevelt Island

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A dedication ceremony was held Wednesday for the new 12-acre Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island.

As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, the campus has bene hailed as a high-tech milestone.

The dedication brings a bright new day and a step forward for students who used to report to school inside Manhattan's Google office building, where Cornell Tech was a rent-free tenant for the past four years.

MBA student Jonathan Kroll just got to the campus from sprawling Cornell University in upstate Ithaca.

"New technologies are coming faster you could imagine," Kroll. "Here I am with computer science students, engineering students, design students, law students -- all in one place and we all are building these products as part of the curriculum together which is exactly how it works in the real world. I don't think that's something that exists elsewhere."

Cornell Tech began with a competition in 2011 to create a place to grow new business in the digital age for New York City and the world. It was backed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The former mayor's charity Bloomberg Philanthropies pitched in $100 million.

"It will help the country because we have to compete with other places in the world for talent, for ideas and creating jobs. This is a job creator," Bloomberg said. "The people here will start businesses that employ people, they'll invent things that make other companies able to grow and employ people and it's great for the world because we need to have things to come out of here. Technology that will improve our lives and make our lives more pleasurable."

Cornell is partnering with Technion – the Israel Institute of Technology.

The campus now has 300 doctorate and master's degree students, and enrollment is expected to soon grow to 2,000.

Previously, Cornell Tech was in temporary rent-free office space in Chelsea.

The school said the program has already has created 30 new startup companies.