Ayyyeee… What’s Goodie Everyone. So I got some tea and it involves an area of NYC that will be the site of a very expensive climate campus.

 The federal government turned over control of Governors Island to New York City, and city officials have sought a way to use the 172-acre patch of land with stunning views of Lower Manhattan. They have finally come up with an answer. On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams announced a $700 million campus dedicated to finding solutions to address the climate crisis.

The city chose a consortium led by Stony Brook University to transform one of the island’s last big chunks of developable land into a 400,000-square-foot hub called the “New York Climate Exchange.” The campus, which will focus on researching climate solutions and training for green jobs, is expected to open in 2028.

The climate hub will serve as a “living laboratory” that features resilient design, with renderings showing shiny sloped buildings covered in vegetation that are intended to evoke the hills of Governors Island. It will include two newly constructed classroom and research buildings on three acres of land that are currently undeveloped and will also make use of some historic buildings on the island. The existing public amenities will remain.

The idea for building a climate hub on Governors Island had been circulating for years. The island; once an outpost of the Dutch West India Company and a Civil War prison for Confederate soldiers has become one of the city’s public space marvels, with hammocks, vegetable gardens, vegan food trucks and the city’s longest slide. Not everyone was in favor of the project. Last December, a judge dismissed a legal challenge from a coalition that argued the new buildings would wreck the serenity of the island. An appeal is possible, but officials said they were confident that the city would win the case.

The car-free island is only reachable by ferry, and leaders have acknowledged that transportation was the “elephant in the room” for the project. As part of the new plan, the Trust for Governors Island will provide ferry service every 15 minutes, …