UF campus West Palm Beach is on hold due to 'regrettable division' in the community
The university, citing "some regrettable divisions in the local community," said whether they'll ever go forward with a West Palm campus will now be part of its six-month strategic review.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/westpb/2023/02/28/uf-says-campus-in-west-palm-beach-on-hold-due-to-jeff-greene-conflict/69954220007/
I think it's very interesting how much investment was already springing up around the proposed WPB campus. Especially looking at that "transit village" planned around the Tri-Rail station there. With the Rosa Parks transit hub across State St from the campus, and the U2C TOD study focusing so much development around there, I wonder if any local developers will take advantage of that.
Sadly no. The rents in the area can't support medium density development. The Corner Lot project is using practically every incentive possible to make it happen on 1st & main. UF or someone would need to guarantee lease rates or subsidize the projects early on. Certainly once the site is actually under construction, the conversation changes. WPB has rental rates that far exceed $2psf.
Okay, fair enough if we're not immediately getting a $1.3 billion transit village. But a big point of a big premier state university campus is attracting people who are willing to rent new apartments rather than the relatively minimal existing housing stock, whether that's students here, the graduates, or professors. Having multiple other schools nearby that could take advantage of any project (including JU and UNF's downtown campuses, FSCJ even, perhaps some EWU students) could be helpful. I don't think it'd be unreasonable for UF to support an adjacent residential/mixed use project and even subsidizing some units for their students or employees. They bought an entire newer apartment complex in Gainesville not long ago to repurpose for subsidizing graduate housing. If they're serious about Jacksonville they could very well do something similar.
A friend who lived in Newark a decade ago told me it wasn't a blistering market back when they first started school there, and the whole neighborhood was aching for new rentals even though the apartment market at that time was weak. That seems similar to where we are now.
Broken record, but I still have an impossible time believing that the project that Curry and UF are talking about for Jacksonville isn't the same project that is/was offered to West Palm Beach. It's just too convenient that West Palm hits a roadblock and suddenly there's a hastily arranged press conference in Jacksonville to discuss an eerily similar Jax campus. I've lived in Jacksonville and been around the local politics long enough to know that there is rarely such things as coincidences.
Assuming we are talking about the same project, that leaves us with two scenarios:
1) UF genuinely has moved on from West Palm Beach, and is legitimately interested in Jacksonville for its new AI-driven graduate campus.
2) UF still sees West Palm as the most advantageous location for its new graduate campus, and is using Jacksonville (and $100 million in transferrable state money) as leverage to get their requested concessions from WPB
I've got far less confidence in which of the above is true. I'm hoping it's 1, while fearing it's 2.
I can't see a universe though where we should give $50 million in taxpayer dollars to UF without assurances that either they've moved on from West Palm, or that they have serious interest in Jacksonville as a second location for a graduate campus, assuming WPB comes back online.
Also, UF has stated that residential (student and faculty housing) will be a component of their new campus. And JEA has stated that they're on board to provide land and $10 million in free utilities to UF. Assuming the campus is a real thing that eventually happens, I wonder if there's an opportunity for UF and JEA to partner on converting JEA's existing headquarters to residential when they move into the new building. It's only like 2 or 3 blocks from the proposed campus.
I was thinking early in this, before we knew about the site selection, that a campus made up of the three blocks (save for the existing Salvation Army stuff) along Main Street between Church and Adams Streets (including the current Main Street Pocket Park), with the addition of the JEA building if that became available, would be a really cool urban location, especially if there was the ability to slow down Main Street so it'd be better for pedestrians. You'd be able to leverage the JEA site, plus have the Main Library right there, with multiple existing apartment buildings within a block of Adams & Main. You could even take advantage of the FBC Academy block, and the garage to the north of it. There's also the Jessie to the south, JWJ Park and the Skyway to the west, and Cathedral District and Elbow to the east. It'd be a great spot in the heart of downtown, but I imagine the hardest part would be securing all the parcels. Benefit of the currently highlighted site is that everything is either owned by FSCJ, JEA, or COJ.
I think in the end, UF would have preferred West Palm Beach (Jacksonville did lose the competitive process after all), but given everything with Greene they're open to trying to make it work here. If that's the case, and they're serious, we might as well lock it down as much as we can.