The bustle across Columbia University's emerging Manhattanville Campus is offering a rare window on a mega-development that has not only reshaped a neighborhood but has also become a showcase for innovation. "Top-down" construction, double-skin facades, a first-ever LEED designation and even sweeping noise mitigation are making the $6.3-billion campus notable for more than its massive 6.8-million-sq-ft, two-decade scope.
The development—spanning 17 acres of Manhattan mostly bounded by 125th Street, Broadway, 12th Avenue and 134th Street, just blocks from the main Morningside Heights campus—broke ground on infrastructure work in 2008 and has progressed unconventionally since then.