Anne GeggisThe university pays $6.25 million to square off a key block, will start with nine buildings.
Nine buildings, four with towers potentially rising 10 stories, are planned to transform 9 acres of downtown into a satellite for one of the country’s most selective private universities in its first phase in West Palm Beach.
Vanderbilt University, based in Nashville, Tenn., has submitted to the city the first draft of its plans to transform a section of downtown known as “Government Hill” with a campus expected to cost at least $300 million. It’s the first public step toward welcoming about 1,000 students to the city starting in 2029, initially from Vanderbilt’s engineering and management grad schools.
The university has accepted gifts of land from the city and the county appraised at nearly $60 million as leaders have seen the value in wooing a major higher education institution to a forlorn edge of downtown. Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene also has contributed eight more lots.
But not all of the campus land is coming together as a gift.
To square off one of the key blocks, the university paid $6.25 million in June to buy two lots at Tamarind and Datura. The seller, Commercial Florida Solana LLC, paid $2.75 million for the property in 2022 and had sought to build 65 apartments.
Starting with Datura Street
Vanderbilt’s first building, which will eventually be connected to two other buildings, will be about 115,000 square feet and four stories, said David Manfredi, chief architect for the campus. Site plans show the campus’ main entrance on Datura Street, with the first building where the Palm Beach County Community Services building is now, roughly at 810 Datura St. Community Services is moving to a county complex on 45th Street.
The campus will be much more than bricks, mortar and concrete, mimicking the certified “arboretum” at Vanderbilt’s Nashville campus, which features native species, and designated wildflower and pollinating gardens, Manfredi said.
“This is a university campus that, in fact, will be within an arboretum with a very significant investment in natural landscape and a commitment to that big idea, because it connects to a bigger philosophy of the importance of nature in relationship to learning, discovery and innovation,” said Manfredi, CEO and founding principal of the Boston-based Elkus Manfredi Architects, which designed CityPlace. His company is working with the West Palm Beach-based Urban Design Studio on plans for the site.
Vanderbilt’s first draft for West Palm Beach, reviewed Aug. 13 at a city staff level, shows some variances from codes could be needed for curb cuts, vehicle access and open space, but the campus buildings will conform to city height limits, Manfredi said.
“Vanderbilt will continue working closely with city and county officials throughout the review process, and any future development will comply with applicable zoning and code requirements, including recommended building height,” Vanderbilt said in a statement.
What about off-campus?
Still, in a rapidly growing downtown confronting a rising chorus of objections, Vanderbilt’s impact is being watched closely.
New citizen groups have sprung up with concerns about how downtown traffic and quality of life are being affected as development in the city reaches new proportions.
Traffic studies around Vanderbilt are in the works. Early submittals from the team that’s working on the proposals, which include West Palm Beach’s Simmons & White, don’t mention where the first set of students will live.
Vanderbilt officials said the university has no information about student housing to share at this time.
Jessica Swift, chair of the West Palm Beach Residents Coalition, said she’s glad to see the city attract a top-tier research and academic institution, but she has questions that she hopes city planners consider.
“Have they contemplated build-out for affordable housing? Where are they going to put the students, the staff, the teachers, plus whoever else is needed?” she asked. “For the traffic, what does the spillover look like between Tamarind and Banyan?”
The Vanderbilt area, long landbanked by the county for expansion needs, has few homes. But the city’s historic Black neighborhood, just to the north, is already feeling development pressure that could force longtime homeowners out if it pushes home values and taxes higher.
“The neighboring communities need to be protected,” Swift said.
Assembling the blocks of land
In March 2023, Vanderbilt started exploring a move to West Palm Beach after an effort to land a University of Florida satellite fell through. And in 2025, billionaire Stephen Ross announced he would spearhead an effort to make it happen with his own $50 million contribution to Vanderbilt.
With that momentum, Vanderbilt this year announced that $300 million in contributions had been secured in the effort and a second phase of fundraising aimed to raise $250 million more toward building what university officials call “a state-of-the-art innovation hub.”
Plans for Vanderbilt University’s West Palm Beach address accelerated in March when Greene and his wife, Mei Sze, agreed to donate eight lots on these blocks to Vanderbilt. Greene continues to own land on the block south of Evernia Street.
A statement from Vanderbilt in March called the land donation the largest philanthropic gift the Greenes have made to any organization to date.
Even with Greene’s donation, Vanderbilt faces a corner it doesn’t own at Tamarind and Evernia. At this point, plans show that corner as off campus.
The lot at 950 Evernia St. is home to ARIA (Addiction Recovery Institute of America) Drug & Alcohol Detox Center. Ethema Health Corp. bought the lot in 2023 for $5.5 million and sold it two weeks later for $8.5 million to an independent real estate portfolio company, Pontus EHC Palm Beach.
Fitting with history
More Vanderbilt programs could be coming to the campus, Manfredi told city staff at the Aug. 13 meeting. He said construction could start next year.
Learning is a longtime tradition in this area.
Colored School No. 1, at Tamarind and Datura, was built in 1897, according to Palm Beach History Online. The Central Schools campus was built nearby in 1908, now the Dreyfoos School of the Arts.
The resistance to building educational facilities that emerged when that campus was built is not likely to arise as Vanderbilt University’s plans advance, said Ginger Pedersen, a Boynton Beach author and South Florida historian.
“When they built that school … the people were very upset about it because they said that the kids would get eaten by alligators,” Pedersen said.
