Columbia University’s proposed Manhattanville campus will create 9,000 permanent new jobs and bring $1 billion in business to the area, designers and school officials say.

The theme of the buildings are integration, featuring transparent glass exteriors and retail space on the first floors in a bid to meld the university with the community, a sharp contrast to the thick masonry of the gated Morningside Heights campus.

“The Morningside campus had the feeling of a cloister, with a sense of containment,” said Marilyn Taylor, a partner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, which is designing the plan with Renzo Piano Building Workshop. “We wanted to create something transparent and permeable for the surrounding community.”

The ground floors will be built with low-iron glass, a type that is especially transparent. This light and airy atmosphere will create “a seamless transition” from the outside cityscape to the building interiors.

The buildings will be held up with a metal and glass framing system, similar to what is found in the Natural History Museum’s Rose Planetarium, Ms. Taylor added.

In its biggest expansion since 1896, when it moved to Morningside Heights, Columbia’s new campus would bring 9,000 new jobs, ranging from security officers, lab technicians, researchers, and faculty.

This would be on top of the 1,200 existing jobs in the 18.3-acre campus, which would run from 125th to 133rd streets and Broadway to Twelfth Avenue. The new jobs are estimated to inject $1 billion into the neighborhood, in addition to another $4 billion in a one-time stimulus from construction costs.

Columbia owns 42% of the site, 19% is owned by the city or state, and the remainder is private. It will finance the purchase of the remaining 39% with Columbia funding, including a possible debt issuance, said Columbia’s vice president for facilities management, Mark Burstein.

Aside from the glass buildings featuring retail on the ground floor,the designs call for a widening of sidewalks to promote pedestrian traffic and trees lining the cross streets. It is far too premature to take in leases for the ground floors, but the architects imagine the street-level retail spaces filled by cafes, banks, and even art exhibits.

There would also be an underground network that would extend throughout the campus.

The first phase of the project, to be completed in the next 10 to 12 years, will include a new campus for the School of the Arts, a building for scientific research, and the renovations of the Studebaker Building and Prentis Hall. These will replace a large parking lot and several one- and two-story commercial buildings.

Rezoning is the key to making the new campus a reality. Manhattanville is zoned for manufacturing, where buildings have low height restrictions, and many residential and commercial uses are limited.

Columbia is expected to apply for the rezoning in the fall, Mr. Burstein said. While the application will specify building heights and structural details, the uses for the buildings will remain open to allow the university to fill them with research facilities, residences, or other uses as needed.

Columbia hopes to get approval from the Department of City Planning for the rezoning by next summer.

A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Julia Vitullo-Martin, noted in a recent report that Columbia has only 194 square feet per student, far less than Princeton’s 561 square feet, the University of Pennsylvania’s 440 square feet, and Harvard’s 368 square feet.

It is also “nearly as land-locked as Afghanistan,” with the northern expansion its only option, she wrote.

“Like Columbia itself,Harlem is a famous American franchise that stumbled badl.… And like Columbia, Harlem has made a spectacular comeback. This marriage can benefit both partners,” she wrote.