With Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology jointly developing a two-million-square-foot applied science and engineering campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, Rabbi Zalman Duchman says the local Jewish community is gearing up for an influx of professors, faculty members and students on the urban island between Manhattan and Queens.

“It gives one pause when you have to think not just of today or tomorrow, but about what our institutions will look like five, 10, 20 years from now,” says Duchman, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Roosevelt Island. “We have to have the infrastructure in place to provide warm community for the many Jewish professionals who will flock here in the coming years.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Monday that Cornell and the Technion had been selected to develop the massive NYCTech Campus, which will be organized around three interdisciplinary hubs: connective media, healthier life, and the built environment. The new institution, which will offer master and doctorate degrees, will open a temporary off-site campus next year. A groundbreaking is expected in 2015, and the campus has a target completion date of 2037.

Since moving to the island a few years ago, Duchman has seen the “growth of a small, but strong united Jewish community.” Especially with the Technion now involved in local development, he foresees a steady period of continued growth.

“The prominence of the Jewish contribution to scientific progress is very much highlighted here,” said the rabbi.