Cornell Tech began operations in 2012 at a temporary site, the New York City offices of Google at 111 Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, while the permanent campus was built.

The analysis concluded that New York had significant opportunities in the high tech sector and recommended a series of initiatives to better capitalize on these developments.

These recommendations included, but were not limited to: creation of a string of incubators, an early stage investment fund, NYC Big Apps.

[3][4][5] In response to this recommendation, Mayor Bloomberg launched a competition to build an applied sciences campus in New York City with a focus on entrepreneurship and job creation.

[13][14] The New York City Economic Development Corporation awarded the project to the Cornell/Technion bid in December 2011,[13] after Stanford pulled out of negotiations.

[14][16] Cornell declined to build on potential sites in Brooklyn Navy Yard and Governors Island due to the lack of transit access to either location.

[18] Cornell Tech began operations in 2012 at a temporary site, the New York City offices of Google at 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.

[19] Google's co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, agreed to donate some of the building's space to Cornell Tech despite their alma mater Stanford University losing the Roosevelt Island campus bid.

The largest was a $350 million gift from Atlantic Philanthropies, founded by Charles Feeney (Cornell class of 1956), the owner of Duty Free Shops.

[43] On August 1, 2019, Greg Morrisett was named the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost of Cornell Tech.

He was previously the dean of Cornell's Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS), and is regarded as an international expert in software security.

[45] Jaros, Baum & Bolles provided engineering support for the master plan, as well as MEP and related services for the Tata Innovation Center.

[46] During planning for the campus, it was anticipated that all its maintenance systems "such as heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and fire safety" would be automated.

[16] As part of a long-term sustainability plan, 20% of the campus was required to be undeveloped or open public space, and its buildings had to be built on a 500-year floodplain, which would have a 0.2% chance of flooding in any single year.

[52] Its 160,000-square-foot (15,000 m2) interior[39] contains a short atrium cutting through the center of the building, aligning with 57th Street across the East River from Roosevelt Island's western shore.

[55] The seven-floor structure is meant primarily as a business incubator for students, faculty, and staff,[39] with 70% of the building being commercially leased and 30% devoted to academic space.

[38][39][45] As it conforms with the Passive House Institute's rigorous standards, its energy output would be 60% to 70% less than if it had been built like a regular, non-energy-efficient high-rise.

[45] The House's outer walls include 8-to-13-inch thick (0.20 to 0.33 m) insulated panels, which would retain annually 882 short tons (800,000 kg) of carbon dioxide.

The hotel would serve mainly to provide lodging for the campus's guests, but would also be open to New York City visitors in general.

"[47] When the campus opened on Roosevelt Island in 2017, about two-thirds of the students were in Cornell's masters programs, and one third were in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute.

[64][65] Alexandra Lange, writing for The New Yorker, said that the campus could "give Roosevelt Island the contemporary identity it has never had," but that it could also possibly negate that effect if Cornell Tech were to isolate itself from the city.

[17] Justin Davidson of New York magazine wrote that the campus "is so ambitious that its architecture offers a mixture of delight and disappointment".