Greenes’ gift boosts Vanderbilt University plan

Vanderbilt rounds out key downtown block with land donation by Jeff and Mei Sze Greene.

Palm Beach billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene and his wife, Mei Sze, have donated key downtown land to Vanderbilt University next to the site of the school’s planned West Palm Beach campus.

The 1.3 acres between Evenia and Datura streets west of Sapodilla Avenue have been appraised at $80 million, Greene said after an announcement Monday.  

In a statement, Vanderbilt described the land as the largest philanthropic gift the Greenes have made to any organization to date.

The land will be combined with 7 acres over a two-block area between Tamarind and Sapodilla avenues from Fern to Datura streets being granted to Vanderbilt by Palm Beach County and West Palm Beach.

Greene paid $5.5 million in December 2012, near the low point of the real estate market, for 13 downtown lots, including the eight lots he is donating to Vanderbilt. Those properties give Vanderbilt all but two lots on the long block between Datura and Evernia streets.

The next year, Greene bought eight more lots, including the American Red Cross building at 825 Fern St., for $3.4 million, making him stand out as a major public landowner on two blocks dominated by city, county and state ownership. 

He landbanked the properties but made them available to the University of Florida before that deal collapsed in 2023.

“I saw this land was adjacent to city and county land, and I intentionally did not do anything to develop it,” he said Monday.

Greene said he wanted the land to be used for something transformational.

But when Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach and Vanderbilt came to a deal spearheaded by downtown developer Stephen Ross, they moved forward without Greene’s land. 

While helping them assemble a complete block, Greene is retaining valuable land between Evernia and Fern streets west of Sapodilla. He told The Palm Beach Post’s Alexandra Clough that he is contemplating a 25-story tower featuring residences, plus an extended-stay hotel.

Greene traced his consideration of a gift to a lunch with County Commissioner Gregg Weiss, who is running for West Palm Beach mayor, and the current occupant of the seat, Mayor Keith James. 

“They asked me if I’d be willing to make my land available to a university if one was coming to us,” he said.

Visits by Vanderbilt representatives to the Greenes’ homes on Palm Beach and in the Hamptons followed.

“Our hope was that, together with the city and county, we could get a hospital, museum, stadium or university on these amazing, prime downtown parcels,” Greene said Monday. “Getting Vanderbilt University to open a 1,000-student graduate campus on our land is literally our dream come true.”

Vanderbilt announced in January that it had achieved $300 million in private commitments toward its $500 million fundraising goal and would move into the next phase of the project.

“This land will allow us to design a true, cohesive campus, where classrooms, labs and community spaces come together seamlessly,” Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said Monday. “We hope Jeff and Mei Sze’s vision will inspire others to join in this noble effort.”

Greene’s West Palm ties

Monday’s announcement at the Greene School, founded in 2016 by the Greenes, was an opportunity for him to reflect on his deep connection to West Palm Beach.

Greene remembers visiting the city as a 14-year-old after his father left the family home in Massachusetts to buy a stamp business called ACE Marking Devices on South Dixie Highway.

“In the summer of 1970, I was in the back room cutting pieces of rubber and making rubber stamps a mile from here,” Greene said.

With scholarships, student loans and part-time jobs in Palm Beach County and Baltimore, he put himself through Johns Hopkins University, earning a bachelor’s degree in two and a half years. Soon, he was graduating with a master’s from Harvard Business School.

Fast-forward to 2009, when Greene had amassed a real estate fortune followed by betting that the subprime mortgage bubble would burst and returned with Mei Sze to Palm Beach. They live there with their three sons and his mother, who will soon turn 100.

His fortune is estimated by Forbes to be $9 billion, making him among the world’s 400 wealthiest people.

“The city of West Palm Beach, to which I came as a kid, was a deteriorating mess, but I could see the full potential.”

Greene’s highest-profile real estate project is One West Palm, 30-story towers north of downtown with 1 million square feet of office space set to open in 2027. 

He has also assembled nearly 19 acres along North Flagler Drive across from West Palm Beach’s Currie Park.

Greenes’ priority is education

Vanderbilt’s West Palm campus is expected to focus on graduate education and research in finance, management, engineering, space technology, defense technology and business innovation. 

Vanderbilt stepped in to the site in March 2024 after the University of Florida pulled out. That deal unraveled in February 2023 after UF and Greene couldn’t agree to terms, including naming rights, for Greene’s donation of land, The Palm Beach Post reported. Around that same time, UF announced plans to build a graduate school in Jacksonville.

The announcement Monday made no mention of whether any part of the campus would be named for the Greenes.

In 2011, the Greenes joined Warren Buffett in The Giving Pledge to donate the bulk of their wealth.

Greene noted the couple supports dozens of causes and that their priority is education. They have endowed a professorship at Harvard, he said, and invested $50 million in The Greene School.

“Our family has been so blessed financially,” Greene said. “While I’m still very, very active in business, our main goal is making the world a better place for others.”