Palm Beach County OKs Land Donation for $520M Vanderbilt Campus in South Florida

Vanderbilt University’s $520 million campus plan in West Palm Beach, Fla., passed a major hurdle Tuesday, with the Palm Beach County Commission unanimously approving a land donation for the 300,000-square-foot project.  

In August, the Nashville-based university unveiled plans to build a 1,000-student campus, which would include a main academic building, student housing and a parking garage in Downtown West Palm Beach. The satellite graduate school would focus on business, artificial intelligence and data science. 

Soon after the plans were unveiled, the West Palm Beach Commission approved a 2-acre land donation for the project. The parcels — located on South Tamarind Avenue, Evernia Street, and Fern Street — were worth at least $12.8 million. 

The county’s move adds 5 acres to Vanderbilt’s tally. According to the county’s appraisal, the lots were worth $46 million. 

Vanderbilt has committed to spending $300 million on the first phase of construction, which must start in the next five years, under the county’s agreement. 

“We must avoid framing this as just another transaction. We must frame this as a transformational opportunity,” West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James said during the public meeting. “This is about job creation and economic prosperity for our entire region.”

Since the pandemic, high-profile finance companies such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sach and Elliott Management have opened offices in West Palm Beach. Billionaire Stephen Ross, chairman of Related Companies and the city’s largest Class A landlord, lobbied for the Vanderbilt campus. 

A common complaint from the business community about West Palm Beach and South Florida more broadly is its lack of quality schools to create a pipeline of sought-after job candidates. 

Before Vanderbilt entered the picture, University of Florida was in talks to build a campus, also in West Palm Beach. But those plans fell apart after a naming disagreement with developer Jeff Greene, who owned a portion of the lots for the campus, the Palm Beach Post reported. 

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.