Forest City Ratner at Cornell Tech: "taking this notion of the commercialization of academia to a higher plane"

Weiss/Manfredi Architects, via Co.Exist

From FastCompany's Co.Exist yesterday, Introducing The Bridge, The Innovation Hub Of New York City's $2 Billion Tech Campus, subtitled "Cornell Tech is building a new type of campus where companies and academia will work together more closely than ever":

At New York City’s newest university, the Ivory Tower is being declared dead before it even gets built. 

That’s the philosophy embodied in the name the Bridge, one of three buildings slated to open in 2017 during the first phase of construction of Cornell Tech’s new $2 billion, 12-acre campus on Roosevelt Island. The graduate school—a pillar of New York City’s efforts to grow its tech economy—is not shy about its desire to knock down traditional barriers between academia and industry collaboration. The Bridge, formerly referred to as the "corporate co-location" building, is where the action will happen.

"It's taking this notion of the commercialization of academia to a higher plane," says MaryAnne Gilmartin, CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, the owner and developer of the building. She revealed the name exclusively to Co.Exist before a groundbreaking ceremony on June 16 (see a promo video here). Cornell Tech will lease about one-third of the seven-story building, while a co-working space and a mix of startups and larger companies will occupy much of the rest of 200,000 square-feet.

(Emphases added)

So Co.Exist got a scoop--or was that a gift?

And is "taking this notion of the commercialization of academia to a higher plane" an unalloyed good?

(Also news today, Bloomberg Philanthropies Gives $100 Million to Cornell Tech.)