Case Study
As Rowan began to increase its capital spending locally, the city of Glassboro saw a unique opportunity to leverage the Rowan investments by developing a plan for the transformation of the downtown area leading to the university. This plan ultimately became the $476 million, mixed-use development of Rowan Boulevard. In the city of Glassboro more than 30 percent of school-aged children qualified for the free lunch program and 20 percent of families earn under the poverty line. The growth that was transforming Rowan was noticed by the former mayor of Glassboro and the business community. Policy and business leaders were encouraged by the growing student market for retail services, housing and food coupled with the university’s strategic focus on becoming an “engine of growth” for Southern New Jersey. In 2008, the town purchased and demolished rundown properties to make way for the development. The Rowan Boulevard design plan generated significant interest by developers, in part because it included lease-back arrangements with the university for student housing and academic buildings.
The South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University is located approximately one mile from the Rowan campus. According to Dr. Beena Sukumaran, who directed the management of the park for Rowan, the growth of business and investment in the Glassboro area was initiated in partnership with a local philanthropist, Sam Jones, who donated $1 million in 2006 for the establishment of the technology park. According to university literature, “The mission of the Technology Park is to establish a technology based entrepreneurial economy; expand and strengthen the unique research and learning environment of Rowan University; and create value for its surrounding communities in their economic, physical and social development.”
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
As soon as it became clear that Stillman would be located in a Opportunity Zone, the school’s president seized the opportunity to enlist the support of potential private equity partners, the City of Tuscaloosa, and consultants to develop investment projects for the school’s vacant and unused property holdings. As a result, Stillman College has developed plans to build three projects: 100 units of workforce housing for its faculty, administration, staff; redevelopment of an existing, vacant student dormitory for senior student housing; and a hotel (which has been postponed for COVID-19 reasons).
Stillman College signed a memorandum of understanding with partners in a project to build a 125-room hotel on the college campus to serve as a teaching center for the school’s hospitality management program. Also a part of the project is mixed-use residential and commercial space, including market-rate housing for faculty, graduate students and the surrounding community. The plan is for the project to be sold back to Stillman College for its long-term use at the end of a 10-year holding period, with the cash flowing back to the college. The primary investor is the Renaissance HBCU Opportunity Fund, an Opportunity Fund, that provides assistance and financing to historically black colleges and universities.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
Opportunity Zone equity was paired with Historic Tax Credits to support the transformation of an underutilized 125-year-old building on Lehigh University’s campus into 30 apartments and new retail space in South Bethlehem. Reinventing this space is part of Lehigh’s strategy to demonstrate their commitment to community, revitalize South Bethlehem, and continue campus expansion as the university grows. Opportunity Zone incentives, coupled with a committed developer and community development focused financing, funded this project.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
The university serves as an anchor in The Dayton Arcade project which restored a 9-building complex in downtown Dayton. The project includes affordable and market-rate units, University of Dayton and the Entrepreneurs Center’s Arcade Innovation Hub, leasable office and retail space, and event space. The Arcade is part of a larger plan by the City of Dayton to bring residents, jobs, and visitors back to the downtown. Across the street from the Arcade is the new Levitt Pavilion – an outdoor live music venue that offers 50 free concerts each year. The Levitt is at the center of “The Nine”, a nine-block redevelopment strategy led by the city that builds on existing underutilized assets to build a premiere downtown urban neighborhood centered around a central park.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
In 2004, La Salle University’s Office of Community and Economic Development worked with leadership and community members to craft a realistic plan to improve the quality of life for residents around the campus. The University’s findings led them to The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a Philadelphia-based CDFI and leader in the financing of neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, community facilities, supermarkets, and commercial real estate. With the support of TRF, La Salle University began to develop a redevelopment strategy for its investment in the adjacent neighborhoods. The keystone of the plan was a 80,000 square foot retail center, The Shoppes at La Salle, located adjacent to the campus. The Shoppes at La Salle was anchored by a 50,000 SF Fresh Grocer, the first full-service supermarket built in the area in over 40 years. TRF facilitated $14 million in financing for the supermarket through a combination of grants and loans from Pennsylvania’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative and Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Agency, New Markets Tax Credit financing, the American Recovery and Investment Act financing, and other sources of state loan funds and leveraged financing. The Fresh Grocer opened its doors in 2009, creating more than 250 jobs, mainly filled by local residents. The store also increased access to affordable, fresh food for the residents in the underserved neighborhoods around La Salle’s campus. In addition, the construction of the store incorporated state-of-the-art energy refrigeration and energy management systems that reduce energy consumption and contribute to enhanced financial performance to ensure sustainable operations of the store.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
UNC and Chapel Hill town officials have partnered to spur innovation and entrepreneurship and keep local businesses and research ventures in town. The Carolina Economic Development Strategy’s goal is to revitalize the downtown and boost economic development. The partnership seeks to bring UNC affiliated businesses to downtown Chapel Hill through newly built office spaces. The initiative hopes to develop talent, translate innovation and create vibrant places in the community. The Strategy will create a plan to support transforming downtown Chapel Hill to an innovation district, by recruiting businesses and research entities with a UNC-affinity, developing support services for those businesses and creating more opportunities for startups and fast growing companies to have offices in Chapel Hill. The ultimate goal is for downtown to become one of many innovation hubs, expanding to other areas of town and University-owned properties that can be homes to businesses and increase the number of innovation-oriented companies in Chapel Hill.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
Between 1996 and 2003, the University of Pennsylvania tripled the dollar amount of goods and services purchased from West Philadelphia businesses through their Economic Inclusion Initiative. They continue to focus on local purchasing and aim to award 20 percent of all construction contracts to minority or women-owned businesses. The University has also made great investments in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods by adding 3,800 new street trees and 850 new pedestrian street lights to residential and commercial streets. Penn supports public education by contributing over $800,000 to the neighboring Sadie Alexander Mossell Elementary School and providing landscaping services and security & expertise from Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Penn supports a variety of programs towards preparing Philadelphia’s future workforce, including training minorities to apprentice with local building trade unions and investing in the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative to align unemployed West Philadelphians with opportunities in local anchor institutions. The University funds forgivable loans enabling 1,000 participants to homes in the neighborhood near the school. By investing $150 million in retail development, Penn attracted approximately $1 billion in private investment from the real estate sector. This investment has established vibrant, pedestrian-friendly retail corridors consisting of 450,000 square feet of large and small businesses and created connections between the campus and neighborhood.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
Marquette University is one of the 5 anchor institutions funding the Near West Side Partners nonprofit organization. The organization’s mission is to revitalize and sustain the Near West Side as a thriving business and residential corridor, through collaborative efforts to promote economic development, improved housing, unified neighborhood identity and branding, and greater safety for residents and businesses. Their first major program – the Promoting Assets & Reducing Crime (PARC) Initiative – was “a three-year, $1.5+ million initiative that leverages law enforcement resources to improve safety – largely by addressing negative impact properties, while working with business and other stakeholders to change the perception of this neighborhood and attract economic development opportunities.”
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
The University of Indianapolis joined city and community leaders to celebrate construction of the University Lofts apartments, an off-campus student housing development in partnership with Indianapolis-headquartered Strategic Capital Partners. This $20.5 million investment solidifies the University’s catalyst role in the revitalization taking place on the southside of Indianapolis. The university has a strategy which combines university and community growth and includes more than $50 million in capital investment for the campus and surrounding area. Other projects include Greyhound Village, another student apartment complex which was a joint venture between the university and Strategic Capital Partners, and the Books & Brews Used Bookstore and Taproom project, a partnership between the university and Indianapolis-based developer OakBridge Properties to repurpose another property.
Links to relevant articles:
Case Study
The Greater University Circle Initiative coordinates three large anchor institutions located in Cleveland’s University Circle area—about one-square mile of educational, cultural, and health institutions. Through this initiative, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Case Western Reserve University networked and deployed their resources in a powerful challenge to the persistent poverty and disinvestment in seven surrounding neighborhoods. This strategy pushes against gentrification by seeking to improve the prospects and income of the 60,000 people who live in these neighborhoods. The Greater University Circle Initiative seeks to connect community networks, in part through community engagement, to improve the quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods, and to give residents a greater voice and connection to the resources of the anchor institutions. It is led by the Cleveland Foundation, the world’s first community foundation. Their goals are broadly identified as: Hire Local, Live Local, Buy Local, and Connect.
- Buy Local—increase opportunities for anchor institutions to purchase goods and services locally, and help small businesses increase their capacity to meet these needs
- Hire Local—expand efforts by anchors to hire residents from the neighborhoods, and help improve the local workforce system;
- Live Local—support and improve the employer-assisted housing program, Greater University Circle, and leverage it to help create more stable neighborhoods.
- Connect—the key to all of these efforts, using the resources and skills of organizations such as Neighborhood Connections, a grassroots grant-maker, as well as other intermediaries such as Towards Employment and Ohio Means Jobs (workforce investment board), Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (community development), BioEnterprise, MidTown, University Circle Inc., and the Economic and Community Development Institute (small business support).