Vanderbilt courts billionaire Jeff Greene, others for West Palm Beach campus plan
Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier was back in Palm Beach County last Friday, April 12 to meet with more county government officials and other area leaders about opening a West Palm Beach campus.
Among the meetings was a private lunch with Palm Beach billionaire and real estate developer Jeff Greene, who had been involved in an unsuccessful effort to bring the University of Florida to downtown.
Greene said he and Diermeier discussed the plan to build a Vanderbilt business school and a college for computer science and artificial intelligence in downtown West Palm Beach.
In an exclusive interview with The Palm Beach Post in early April, Diermeier said a West Palm Beach campus of the Nashville private university would capitalize on Palm Beach County's growing reputation as Wall Street South and provide students jobs in finance companies.
More: Vanderbilt University chancellor: Why we want to build a graduate campus in West Palm Beach
A Vanderbilt campus also would "turbocharge" the creation of new businesses established by students, creating an innovation industry, Diermeier said.
"We have been thinking for a while about a potential second campus, and it became clear that South Florida, and West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, would be a great location," Diermeier said.
The campus would be built on seven acres of government-owned land formerly slated for the UF campus. It would not include five acres of adjacent land owned by Greene.
Even though Vanderbilt has a $10 billion endowment, people familiar with the Vanderbilt campus plan say its backers want the city and county to donate the government land for free.
In addition to Greene, Diermeier last week also met members of the community, as well as corporate and educational leaders during his latest trip to the county, a university spokesman confirmed on Monday, April 15.
Greene said Diermeier didn't ask him for anything as they lunched at Greene's oceanfront Palm Beach home. The chancellor just made a point of getting to know Greene, one of West Palm Beach's largest real estate players, Greene said.
"I'll do everything I can to make it work," Jeff Greene says of Vanderbilt plan for West Palm Beach
Greene, who has several real estate projects in the works or just completed in central Palm Beach County, said he welcomed Vanderbilt's presence in downtown West Palm Beach.
"It would be a fantastic addition to the city," Greene said. "There are so many smart people moving down here and so many new young families and so many businesses, and all the great schools in the South already are thinking, 'We should be spreading our wings a little bit.' "
Greene also said West Palm Beach should not miss out on another opportunity to bring a major university campus to downtown.
"I'll do everything I can to make it work," Greene said.
Earlier plans for a UF campus in downtown West Palm Beach fizzled out
In 2021, UF and local government officials announced plans for a UF campus in West Palm Beach that would offer business, finance and artificial intelligence programs.
The 12-acre campus would have been built on land owned by the city, county and Greene.
But the UF campus plan was iced last year following disagreements about the terms of Greene's land donation to the university, including a dispute about naming rights to the campus.
Ben Sasse, UF's new president, then quietly let the plan die last May.
More: Much-touted UF campus plan for downtown West Palm Beach dies, leaving huge disappointment
More: Is University of Florida's grad school campus in West Palm Beach in peril?
Diermeier's recent visit followed a trip to Palm Beach County on April 1, where Diermeier met with county commissioners and attended a fundraiser for the campus plan on Palm Beach.
The event was held at the Palm Beach home of Related Cos. Chairman Stephen Ross and raised $100 million from alumni and business leaders. Private money raised for the venture would go toward the university's endowment, which generates income that finances the university's programs.
Gov. Ron DeSantis also attended the event.
A DeSantis spokesman did not respond to a request for an interview with DeSantis regarding the state's interest in the plan or whether the state would commit taxpayer money to the Vanderbilt campus.
Vanderbilt counts many wealthy alumni and business leaders among its supporters. Vanderbilt has more than 1,100 alumni in Palm Beach County and in the northern part of neighboring Broward County, according to the university.
The Vanderbilt West Palm Beach campus would provide graduate degrees geared to the finance, data and technology industries and enroll roughly 1,000 students, he said.
The seven-acre Vanderbilt campus is being pitched for two acres owned by the City of West Palm Beach and five adjacent acres owned by Palm Beach County. The properties are along South Tamarind Avenue, from Datura Street south to Fern Street, in a section of the city dubbed Government Hill.
Jeff Greene says his One West Palm twin towers will wrap up this year
Greene said a Vanderbilt campus would not only serve students and help launch entrepreneurs in business and finance, but it also would boost demand for office and apartment space in the county.
This is important, he said, because demand for both is falling off after a massive building surge during the past few years.
Greene is putting the final touches on Brandon Estates, a 198-unit apartment complex at 1710 N. Congress Ave. in suburban West Palm Beach.
Greene already built Cameron Estates, a 548-unit apartment complex off Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard in West Palm Beach. Greene also owns condominium units in several downtown complexes that he rents out as apartments.
More residences are slated to open at Greene's One West Palm, a twin-tower complex featuring rental apartments, office space and a hotel.
The 30-story One West Palm, at 550 N. Quadrille Blvd., has been under slow construction for five years. Greene halted construction for a while during the pandemic when work-from-home became the norm.
The towers remained vacant concrete skeletons until December 2020, when construction revved back up amid a surprising pandemic-inspired migration of companies to Florida from crowded, cold climes in the Northeast. At that time, Greene predicted the towers would be open by summer 2022.
But completion was delayed again by several factors, including a window redesign.
Greene now says he expects both towers will be completed by year-end. The construction cranes are gone, and interior work is commencing on the towers, he said.
Greene said the timing for new office space isn't ideal given a slowdown in office leasing, as well as the "glut" of office space from new and existing office buildings.
However, a Vanderbilt campus would significantly boost demand for offices and residences. "We need economic growth in this community in every category," Greene said. "We could use a major push like a Vanderbilt."
Vanderbilt: A "Southern Ivy" university
While not an Ivy League school, Vanderbilt is known as a “Southern Ivy” because of its selective admissions process and strong academic reputation.
Vanderbilt is ranked No. 18 among national universities, and its business school, the Owen School of Management, is No. 27 in the nation in a three-way tie with the University of Texas-Dallas and the University of Rochester, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Current enrollment at Vanderbilt's business school in Nashville is 617 students. The business school has 97 faculty members, and the annual cost of attendance is about $103,000.
The West Palm Beach campus plan, in the works for about a year, is being advanced by Ross' Related Cos., a global real estate developer, and the Frisbie Group of Palm Beach.
Like Greene, both companies want to fill new offices and residences they are building in West Palm Beach.
Alexandra Clough is a business writer and columnist at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at aclough@pbpost.com. Twitter: @acloughpbp. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Vanderbilt courts Jeff Greene, officials on West Palm Beach campus
