{"id":294109,"date":"2026-06-03T07:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294109\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T07:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:35:11","slug":"st-thomas-university-offers-developers-sites-for-hotels-stores-housing-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294109\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Thomas University offers developers sites for hotels, stores, housing, more"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tWritten by Kelly Sanchez<\/a> on June 3, 2026<\/p>\n

\"www.miamitodaynews.com\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"St.<\/p>\n

St. Thomas University has requested qualifications for a partner to develop up to 28 acres of its main campus and potentially redevelop other areas of its existing campus with a mixture of educational and commercial uses.<\/p>\n

The campus development may include a hotel, mixed-use retail and dining, market-rate and workforce residences, student housing, and athletic and recreational amenities.<\/p>\n

The development site between Northwest 32nd and 37th avenues is within a federally designated Opportunity Zone \u2013 a designation and program created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to spur economic growth and job creation in low-income communities while providing tax benefits to investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of our growth over the last seven years, we are at capacity in our buildings and our housing,\u201d said university President David Armstrong. \u201cWe\u2019ve added over 1,000 beds since I became president to the university campus, and we need more, and probably more than we\u2019ve had in the past\u2026 we have about 1,300 to 1,400 beds on campus, but we probably need another 1,000, and we are also looking for other opportunities for revenue\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking for developers who are willing to go into a long-term lease with the university because we won\u2019t sell our land, we\u2019ll always keep our land, but we would consider a long-term lease, and we\u2019re looking for partners that will re-envision our campus, especially the frontage, which is on the Palmetto, with possibly hotel, some retail and workforce housing and student housing and any other types of facilities that can enhance our student experience and the residents\u2019 experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example,\u201d President Armstrong said, \u201cwe\u2019d like to build a natatorium. We have a national championship swimming team, but we\u2019d also like to make sure that every child in Miami Gardens can swim by the age of 3, and so we\u2019re looking for partners that can help us make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition,\u201d he said, \u201cwe are looking to revitalize our campus and basically push all automobile traffic to the outside of the campus, so whether that means parking garages on the outside corners of the campus, so that we can create a pedestrian golf cart campus where people are walking and playing, enjoying the campus as a whole and not having to worry about traffic in the middle of campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also want to see if developers would be interested in helping us build academic buildings, and so we\u2019re leaving this wide open and telling the developers \u2018Use your imagination, and let\u2019s see what we can create.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Armstrong said the university is looking for a partner that helps it fund these initiatives by using its land, allowing the partner to make profit while the university gets the buildings it needs to grow its enrollment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe line I\u2019ve been using is that we have an empty canvas, and let\u2019s see how we can paint it together, because ultimately we wanted to achieve our goals to become one of the top 25 Catholic universities in the country and the great Catholic university of the South,\u201d he said. \u201cIn order to do that, we need to have the campus to make that happen\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a master plan, but we\u2019re looking even bigger and better than our master plan to, again, move the university forward towards its goals, our strategic vision to pursue excellence, nine-year strategic vision, which we\u2019re now in the year seven and a half, and also to enhance Miami Gardens and surrounding community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The estimated cost, Mr. Armstrong explained, will come down to \u201cwhat is most fiscally responsible for the university and for any developers to be able to make their profit and enhance their position in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the university has \u201cbeen getting great interest from the community and from developers across the nation\u201d and \u201cwill probably take the month to look at who\u2019s interested, and then we would start to glean that down to a smaller group, maybe to about 25 bids, and then eventually get it down to 10, to get it down to five, and then eventually pick the best situation, the best partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want someone who wants to partner with the university and help us achieve our vision, and in that process, for them to have a profitable venture for their entity,\u201d Mr. Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

He later added that the sooner they can start, the better, but \u201cwe\u2019re not going to do anything that will jeopardize our mission, our vision and our growth trajectory at this point, so it\u2019s all about finding the right fit and the right partner to move us forward with the visions that we have to become the great Catholic university of the South.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written by Kelly Sanchez on June 3, 2026 Advertisement St. Thomas University has requested qualifications for a partner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-294109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}