Patrick T. Hoffman

Stanford yanks tech-campus bid

After months of pressing its case to open a tech campus in the city, Stanford University abruptly pulled out of the competition Friday.

In a statement, Stanford President John Hennessy said, “after several weeks of negotiations with New York City, university leaders and the Stanford Board of Trustees have determined that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity.”

In response, city officials did concede what must be their severe disappointment in losing such a prestigious applicant.

“This competition is about changing the future of the city’s economy, and we are thrilled that we have a number of proposals that we believe will do exactly that. We are in serious negotiations with several of the other applicants, each of whom has a game-changing project queued up. We look forward to announcing a winner soon. We thank Stanford for participating in our process and wish them good luck.”

Mr. Hennessy said Stanford was very excited to participate in the competition, and was honored to be selected as a finalist. “We were looking forward to an innovative partnership with the city of New York, and we are sorry that together we could not find a way to realize our mutual goals,” he said.

A spokesman for Stanford would not elaborate beyond Mr. Hennessy’s statement.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based university had submitted plans to the city to build a $2.5 billion, 1.9 million-square foot tech campus on Roosevelt Island. It had assiduously courted local partners, teaming up with the City University of New York in an effort to bolster its application.

The withdrawal of Stanford, which had widely been perceived as a frontrunner, throws a monkey wrench into Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s competition. A partnership between Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology now becomes the favorite to win the competition. The two institutions proposed a campus that would grow over time to 2.12 million square feet.