Naming controversy stalls West Palm campus but county ‘steadfast’ in support

Naming controversy stalls West Palm campus but county ‘steadfast’ in support

2023-03-09T11:58:54-05:00March 9th, 2023|Education, Palm Beach|

Writer: Gabriela Enamorado

2 min read March 2023 — The University of Florida’s highly anticipated West Palm Beach campus has been paused over naming issues for the school between a key developer in the project and officials. Despite this setback, the county continues to support the development, said Kelly Smallridge, CEO and president of the Businesses Development Board of Palm Beach County.

“The University of Florida’s proposed graduate degree campus in West Palm Beach would be one of the greatest assets to fuel the continued growth of the innovation economy we are building,” Smallridge told Invest:. “We remain steadfast in supporting this project and hope to bring it to the finish line. Most large projects like this are complicated and always have bumps in the road. We will work through them.”

The UF West Palm Beach campus had been planned to be a high-tech campus that would offer graduate school programs expected to help students eventually kick off businesses and secure high-level jobs.

All of that came to a halt early last week after it was announced that there were naming conflicts between the University of Florida and billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene. 

“Given some regrettable divisions in the local community, the University of Florida is pausing deliberation about a possible West Palm Beach campus,” said a statement released by University of Florida officials. “As Florida’s flagship university and a land-grant institution, UF is committed to being a unifying presence throughout the state and does not want to divide communities we aim to serve.” 

The problem arose when the university allegedly had promised Greene to name the campus the “Jeff Greene School of Technology and Innovation.” He later received information that a specific building would be named after him, not the entire campus as once thought. 

The pause would be a blow to Palm Beach County and to investors who expected the campus to bring significant economic and residential growth. This campus was also intended to attract developers to the area. 

Palm Beach County still has other higher-education projects and developments in the works, including another UF project. 

“We are working alongside UF in their efforts to build the life science center in Jupiter,” Smallridge told Invest:. “The UF/Scripps campus includes a large parcel of land across the street that will be used to foster bench-to-bedside research with world renowned scientists. The most recent $100 million donation by Dr. Herbert Wertheim will catapult their efforts and we are grateful that UF joined Scripps in our county. Our county is economically strong but we remain focused on quality growth and ensuring we have the proper support infrastructure.” 

Early last year, the University of Florida purchased the Scripps Research Institute’s three buildings in Jupiter along with 70 empty acres that once were reserved for Scripps nearby in Palm Beach Gardens. R. Herbert Wertheim’s $100 million dollar donation is the largest donation by a single individual in UF’s history. In recognition of this donation, the campus will be named the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology. 

Another higher-education development in the area is Florida Atlantic University College of Business’ new Madden Center for Value Creation. This center came about after a $3 million donation from the Bartley J. Madden Foundation. This center is to “promote the value creation for widespread prosperity,” according to the FAU College of Business website. 

“The center will provide an intellectual foundation to FAU students to motivate and assist them in understanding value creation as a core principle for success in business, and to become value creators themselves,” said a statement by FAU officials. “It also will develop and run programs for students to engage in research and other activities, as well as host visiting scholars and conferences.” 

FAU’s president also commented on the significance of this new center as well as the support it has received. 

“We truly appreciate this generous gift from the Bartley J. Madden Foundation,” said John Kelly,  president of FAU, in the statement. “We take pride in providing world-class educational opportunities for our students, and the Madden Center will equip our future business leaders with the experience and tools for long-term success.”

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