The University of Texas at Arlington last week unveiled early plans for a glistening new satellite campus on Fort Worth’s western frontier.
UT’s Board of Regents plans to pump $150 million into the project, converting 51 acres of ranchland into a network of classrooms and labs situated strategically along one of the fastest growing corridors in one of the nation’s fastest growing cities.
Jennifer Cowley, UTA’s president, envisions a straightforward and powerful dynamic of symbiotic development: thousands of new students and faculty providing cash and skilled labor to nearby businesses who, in turn, offer goods and jobs.
“Advantageously positioned at the intersection of I-30 and I-20 at the western gateway to Fort Worth, the new campus is located just 14 miles from downtown,” she wrote in an Aug. 5 essay. “The area around UTA West has the potential to add 1 million new residents. This isn’t a matter of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ They’re already there, and more are coming. UTA West will be there to serve them.”
Are these aspirations realistic, and what might it take to realize them?
Everybody wins?
City leaders share Cowley’s enthusiasm. Fort Worth mayor Mattie Parker described the undertaking as a “game changer.”
Robert Sturns, the city’s economic development director, wrote to the Star-Telegram that the campus presents an opportunity to cultivate top talent and workforce development.
“Not only does this expansion build on the excellent foundations already laid by UTA’s downtown campus, but it joins several other Fort Worth universities like Texas A&M, TCU, and Tarleton who have likewise committed to expanding their footprint and their programming to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs,” he wrote.
Far west Fort Worth’s biggest developers agree.
“The significance of their investment and the size of what they’ll bring, just from a commercial real estate development standpoint, will drive additional traffic and needs for retail and housing and other ancillary uses,” said Taylor Baird, a founding partner of Dallas real estate firm PMB Capital Investments.
Baird’s firm manages Veale Ranch, a 3,800-acre “master planned community” promising a vibrant business environment and tens of thousands of homes upon completion.
Veale Ranch sits just south of Walsh, another ranch-turned-development where UTA West plans to plant its flag. (A spokesperson for Walsh declined to comment on UTA’s plans because the firm has yet to finalize its transaction with the school.)
Though Veale won’t host the campus, Baird predicts the property, and the area writ large, will reap substantial rewards from its presence.
The school’s research centers and the thousands of well-trained graduates pumped out of its labs and lecture halls will, officials suspect, lure big, cutting-edge firms to the region. New employees, needing places to shop and sleep, will encourage more retail and residential construction, or so market logic dictates.
“It will certainly accelerate growth,” Baird predicted. “And I think they selected this area because of their diligence and knowledge that it really was the kind of epicenter of growth for Fort Worth.”
The costs of campuses
Researchers have charted strong correlations between the establishment of universities and long-term economic growth in the areas around them. High-tech firms tend to coalesce around schools specializing in high-tech subjects, forming — with the right nourishment — hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Even less sophisticated higher education institutions can be a boon for the local economy. Universities, depending on their size, can provide hundreds to thousands of jobs to nearby residents. Student and faculty spending can buoy a vibrant commercial atmosphere around the campus gates.
But college creation, some experts warn, doesn’t come without drawbacks.
“All this prosperity comes at a cost,” said Davarian Baldwin, an urbanist and historian at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. “It’s passed on to the city. It’s passed on to the residents and the surrounding area.”
These costs take different forms. Universities, being nonprofits or, in UTA’s case, public entities, are tax exempt. The missing revenue can strain city budgets if not properly accommodated. The shifted tax burden is often taken up, in part, by surrounding properties — including households.
Fifty-one acres would amount to little more than a drop in Fort Worth’s pool of taxable property. Still, Baldwin says, the project could reinforce development inequities in the city.
“The question remains about the fruits of targeting both public and private investment dollars to an area when there are many existing communities that could benefit from investment, while there is very little discussion about how the prosperity from this campus may or may not trickle down to the rest of the city,” he said.
Big, glitzy campuses can also drive up land values, Baldwin added, potentially pricing out low and middle income households that staff the school’s cleaning crews and dining facilities.
“It’s the low income workers on these campuses that will carry the burden of long commutes and low wages without policies that ensure workforce housing mandates and resources that encourage mixed-income communities, especially in undeveloped areas,” he said.
“Higher education does and can serve a public good, and we need higher education,” Baldwin continued. “To offer public good, there must be public oversight and democratic arrangements.”
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