AJ Capital Partners and Cornell University have announced plans to build a 196-room hotel in Roosevelt Island.
The hotel, which will be called “Graduate Roosevelt Island,” will open in 2019. It was designed by architecture firm Snohetta and will be located inside the Cornell Tech Campus.
”Graduate Roosevelt Island is the type of transformative project that has come to epitomize our company,” said Ben Weprin, the founder and CEO of AJ Capital Partners. “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.”
The new Roosevelt Island location will add to the Graduate Hotel portfolio of “university-anchored” locations. Currently, there are Graduate Hotels in Ann Arbor, MI, Athens, GA, Charlottesville, VA, Madison, WI, Oxford, MS, and Tempe, AZ. More locations are expected to open in Berkeley, CA, Lincoln, NE, Minneapolis, MN, and Richmond, VA later this year.
“Cornell is thrilled to partner with AJ Capital Partners for a hotel on our Roosevelt Island campus. Their unique aesthetic combined with the world-class architecture of Snohetta will be an asset for Cornell, the Roosevelt Island community and New York City,” said Dan Huttenlocher, Cornell Vice Provost and Dean of Cornell Tech. “
Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island Campus will open its first phase in September. The first three buildings in the complex are called The Bloomberg Center, The Bridge and the House. The Bloomberg Center will be the first academic building in the complex. The Bridge will house companies that will work with Cornell academics. Last January, investment firm Two Sigma signed on as the first tenant. The House, meanwhile, will be a residential building for faculty, staff and students. Once it’s completed, the campus is expected to cover 12 acres and house 2,000 students.
