Cornell University is suing to take back possession of the closed Graduate by Hilton hotel, located on Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus.
The lawsuit, filed on April 29 in the New York Supreme Court, New York County, asks the court to declare Cornell’s 65-year lease with Graduate Roosevelt Island Owner LLC terminated and allow the University to take immediate control of the property. According to court filings, Cornell is also seeking at least $1.42 million in damages for lost revenue since the hotel’s closure in November 2025 and outstanding charges.
The dispute follows the hotel’s “abrupt” closure and the tenant’s “refusal to vacate the premises,” according to a University spokesperson.
“The university takes this action to facilitate reopening the hotel as soon as possible and restoring a vital economic engine for the campus, Roosevelt Island, and New York City,” the spokesperson wrote to The Sun.
Cornell alleges that Graduate defaulted under the lease, or broke a legal agreement, by shutting down hotel operations and failing to cure over $50,000 in unpaid utility charges.In the suit, the University claimed that it terminated the lease effective April 9, but that Graduate has refused to give up the property.
Graduate pushed back with its own lawsuit filed on April 30, stating that it “acted in full compliance with the Lease.” In court filings, the company argues that Cornell had “no valid basis” to end the lease because it did not require the hotel to remain continuously open, and although the disputed utility charges were missed by mistake, they were nonetheless paid in full within the lease’s required payment deadline.
Graduate argues that it was forced to close the hotel after its mortgage lender refused to permit any revenues or reserves from being used to run the hotel’s operations.
Cornell argues that the hotel was a “critical component” of the Cornell Tech campus and that allowing the lease to continue for its remaining 57 years of Graduate’s operational obligations would result in “catastrophic” financial harm to the University.
The 224-room hotel opened in June 2021 as Roosevelt Island’s first hotel and the first Graduate-branded hotel in New York City. According to Cornell Tech, it was built as part of Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus development and intended to serve campus visitors, Roosevelt Island residents and the broader technology community.
Attorneys for the Graduate Roosevelt Hotel Owner LLC did not respond to a request for comment.
