Cornell has hired Andrew Winters, founding director of New York City's Office of Capital Project Development, to oversee the development of the CornellNYC Tech campus. "[Winters] has tremendous experience and has led or been involved in every recent significant project in the city," said Cathy Dove, the NYC Tech VP of operations, in an e-mail to the Daily Sun.

The hiring appears to be a smart move on the part of the Cornell administration, putting someone in charge of the construction who is familiar with the ins-and-outs of complex projects in the city and has a history of working with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Winters’s past projects include the revitalization of Coney Island and the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and prior to working for the Bloomberg administration he was the VP for planning, design, and development at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was created after 9/11 to rebuild the neighborhood devastated by the attack.

And, according to the New York Post, "Cornell has already tapped Tishman Construction to handle preliminary work on the $2 billion, 10-acre project, where buildings are to begin rising in 2014 and open by 2017."