Designed to meet LEED Silver criteria, John Jay College's Academic Building I occupies the entire block bounded by Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, between 58th and 59th Streets. Envisioned as an “academic city within a city,” it houses 80% of the college’s classrooms and expands campus area by 36%, emphatically marking a new era in the school’s history. The project consists of a 14-story tower, perched above very shallow Amtrak rail lines, and a 4-story podium structure that connects to the existing historic 1903 Haaren Hall building via an overhead walkway, which spans the rail lines.

Totaling 625,000 sf (58,000 sm), Academic Building I contains classrooms, research laboratories, faculty offices, auditoriums, cafeterias and social spaces, including a 55,000-sf landscaped green roof that serves as a new campus commons.

To accommodate Amtrak rail lines that pass directly underneath the Ground Floor, LERA devised a complex foundation system comprised of drilled-in caissons and cast-in-place concrete piers, doubling the structural layer within minimal depth and isolating the track enclosure from the building. Where intersection between these layers could not be avoided, neoprene pads were strategically placed to limit the transmission of vibration and noise from one layer to the other (additional vibration analysis was performed for laboratory areas). A system of perimeter hangers, supported by a grid of trusses at roof level, is integral to the design of long span framing and cascading stairs. These perimeter hangers lessen the load on the track enclosure, transferring it to the building core. Gradation of the site allowed for the formation of a basement level housing mechanical and storage spaces and back-of-house functions.