West Palm Beach didn't really lose UF to Jax as much as UF blew a golden opportunity there. There were 2 billionaire developers (Stephen Ross and Jeff Greene) fighting over land and naming rights to the new school. Greene also wanted a clawback on land he was donating if UF didn't maintain a certain number of students (I believe 1k). UF started looking at Jax and Stephen Ross got mad and started reaching out to elite out of state private schools. NYU was considered, as they are currently building a 200k square foot hospital in Downtown WPB and I heard some Ivy's were also looked at, but Vandy was the best fit.
Ross recently retired from and sold his equity in Related Companies, but spun out all of his WPB projects into his new company Related Ross. He also sold 13% of his share in the Dolphins. He's one of the best developers in the world, is cash flush, and is all in on WPB with one new office building recently completed, one nearly done, 3 more coming soon, and others in the works; plus some new high rise resi projects. https://www.relatedross.com/office He also owns CityPlace is right in the middle of most of his projects and it is undergoing a huge transformation with a lot of cool stuff (including an Eataly). UF made a huge mistake not piggybacking on all of his success, connections, and continued growth. Getting an elite university to offer grad programs with synergies with the businesses he is recruiting has always been a real estate play for Ross. That's why he has committed so much money and fundraised amongst his network. UF could have had it all, but ultimately, Vandy should make out like a king.
Some UF alumni in the real estate development world in South Florida I know are baffled at UF's decision to not play ball in West Palm Beach. There is some speculation that it was cost of living and cost of land related. Essentially, there is no way for anyone in UF's network to make money from the campus coming since Ross and other developers already own all nearby land...
As I've said in the other thread about this topic before, I'm glad this happened as an FSU grad and Jax native. A UF campus in WPB would have opened up all kinds of doors to mega donors and heavy hitting businesses and significantly increased it's national prestige. And ultimately, the Jax campus can save downtown. IMO, it's downtown Jacksonville and the urban core's last hope for long term financial sustainability.
I mean this sounds like UF didn't have nearly as much to gain from WPB as Ross did, and it's not exactly their job to enrich a billionaire. And clearly they didn't find whatever other benefits worth the squeeze.
My hot take is that this campus is of course a promising development, but there's nothing preventing Jax in classic Jax fashion from failing to benefit from it. This could easily end as half of LaVilla becoming an academic fortress while the rest of the urban core barely changes. And at the same time, there's no guarantee that Downtown could not have continued to develop without the campus (which remember, didn't seem to be happening for some time). Winning the campus is not the end-all be-all, you still have to sell people on coming here. There's still work to do to make this and all of Downtown and the urban core a success.
The mere fact that Ross/WPB was able to bring in a more prestigious school like Vanderbilt shows that they didn't need UF as badly as UF needed them. Your own skepticism about the likelihood of the UF Jax campus succeeding basically reinforces my above post as well. Ross doesn't fail. He's too connected and too big to fail. He doesn't need UF to make him rich. He's worth $17 billion. He's already been incredibly successful in the past 5 years recruiting bigtime tenants to his WPB office project's. His most recent one is fully leased at rates between $100-140 a square foot, all to the exact type of tenants that both the UF and Vandy campus want to partner with. Related Ross recently announced they are bringing in a yet to be named Silicon Valley company with 25k new employees. Meanwhile DT Jax is leaking tenants at rates of $20-25 a square foot.
I can't explain in less than 50,000 words how many more things are happening in DT WPB than Jax and how much more wealth and access to donations and capital there are there and in Palm Beach. UF was only getting $50 million from Ross to come to WPB initially, but someone that knows Ross told me they would have ultimately gotten donations similar to or even more than what Michigan has gotten from him ($500 million). With all of the other billionaires, investment banks, private equity groups around, the possibilities for UF were limitless. Time will tell, but I feel very confident that UF made a massive mistake. But fortunately for Jax, the transition from Fuchs to Sasse killed any hope of the WPB campus happening.
UF and Jax can still make a successful campus, but as you said that will require some success from COJ, Chamber, etc. As I said in another post in the thread, it's time for Jax to get to work and go bonkers with recruiting complementary businesses to partner with UF and to create a desirable place for UF students/professors. There are no billionaires to guarantee success in LaVilla. However, there is a blank slate, with good bones, cheap land, cheap office space, and some cool nearby neighborhoods. If DT Jax can't succeed with this golden opportunity, I truly don't see how it ever can in the future.
