Dive Brief:
- Vanderbilt University on Tuesday secured approval to build a $519.6 million, 300,000-square-foot graduate campus in West Palm Beach, Florida, that could start hosting classes by 2026.
- County commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the Tennessee-based private university’s expansion in the area. As part of the plan, the county would donate 5 acres of land worth $46 million.
- The added campus would expand Vanderbilt’s graduate business school and include programming in artificial intelligence and data science as well as an innovation hub to connect the university with entrepreneurial activity in the area.
Dive Insight:
Vanderbilt focused its pitch for a West Palm Beach campus around the economic benefits it would bring to the area.
That includes contributions by its campus and the institution — including $100 million a year in projected operational spending — as well potential commercial spin-offs and intellectual property that emerge from campus activity.
Spending by students alone is expected to pour tens of millions of dollars into the local economy each year, according to an August presentation from Nathan Green, Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor for government and community relations. In total, Vanderbilt expects the campus to have 1,000 students and over 100 faculty.
All told, Vanderbilt said its total economic impact on the area would amount to $7 billion in the first 25 years and reach $24 billion over 75 years.
Those are “really big numbers, bigger than any other use to which we could put this property,” Harvey Oyer, an attorney for Vanderbilt, said in Tuesday's presentation to the commission. “There’s no other use you could put on those five acres that would have a larger intellectual impact on our community.”
As part of its agreement with the county, Vanderbilt committed to hit certain spending benchmarks in the development and operation of the campus, such as spending $300 million by the time the campus construction is completed. Oyer noted the university plans to spend above that amount.
Along with the county’s contribution of land to the campus, the city of West Palm Beach in September gave Vanderbilt the right to develop 2.2 acres of city-owned land at the site.
As it eyes expansion in Florida, Vanderbilt has also taken steps recently to deepen its presence in New York. In September, the university announced it had signed a lease in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood for a campus as it looks to “bring the world to Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt to the world.”
The university did not share specific plans for programming in the space. It will mull the question with input from a newly established academic advisory committee that includes professors from the liberal arts, science, engineering and business disciplines. Vanderbilt’s vice provost for undergraduate education chairs the committee.
Vanderbilt’s flagship campus in Nashville had 13,710 students in fall 2022, including 6,559 graduate students, per federal data. Both figures grew significantly from five years prior, when Vanderbilt saw 12,592 total students, with 5,707 graduate students.
