New York City is being transformed by universities’ huge investments in projects that put together “applied sciences” and “entrepreneurship”, write The New York Times.

“Private and public universities have been spending a robust $2 billion a year in construction costs, according to the New York Building Congress. The Cornell and N.Y.U. initiatives alone could generate $33 billion in activity over the next three decades, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

The Renzo Piano-designed Lenfest Center for the Arts, center, and Jerome L. Greene Science Center, right.

Columbia’s 17-acre, $6.3 billion Manhattanville campus is scheduled to open in May: the two initial anchors are the Jerome L. Greene Science Center and the Lenfest Center for the Arts.

Opening this summer is Cornell’s 12-acre, $2 billion technology campus on Roosevelt Island, established in a partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Companies and start-ups will work alongside Cornell researchers, who are now temporarily working out of the Google building, in Chelsea.

The third major project — to be unveiled in the fall — is N.Y.U.’s $350 million plan, part of an ambitious push into Brooklyn and beyond: it’s an innovation hub for engineering, applied science, urban science, digital technology, and digital media arts.