The University of Texas at Arlington last week unveiled plans for a brand new satellite campus on Fort Worth’s western border.
The University of Texas Board of Governors plans to invest $150 million in the project, which will transform 130 acres of ranchland into a network of classrooms and labs strategically located along one of the fastest-growing corridors in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
Jennifer Cowley, president of UTA, envisions a simple and powerful dynamic of symbiotic development: thousands of new students and teachers providing money and skilled labor to nearby businesses, which in turn provide goods and jobs.
“The new campus is conveniently located at the intersection of I-30 and I-20 at the western gateway to Fort Worth, 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 is not a matter of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ They are here, and more are coming. UTA West will be there to serve them.”
Are these ambitions realistic and what is needed to achieve them?
Does everyone win?
City officials share Cowley’s enthusiasm. Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker described the venture as a “game changer.”
Robert Sturns, the city’s economic development director, wrote to the Star-Telegram that the campus offers an opportunity to cultivate top talent and develop the workforce.
“This expansion not only builds on the excellent foundation already established by UTA’s downtown campus, but also joins several other Fort Worth universities, including Texas A&M, TCU and Tarleton, that have similarly committed to expanding their footprint and programming to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs,” he wrote.
The biggest developers in far west Fort Worth agree.
“The significance of their investment and the magnitude of what they will bring, just from a commercial real estate development standpoint, will drive additional traffic and demand for retail, residential and other related uses,” said Taylor Baird, a founding partner of Dallas-based real estate firm PMB Capital Investments.
Baird’s company manages Veale Ranch, a 3,800-acre “master-planned community” that promises a vibrant business environment and tens of thousands of homes upon completion.
Veale Ranch is just south of Walsh, another ranch that is now a development area and where UTA West plans to plant its flag. (A spokesman for Walsh declined to comment on UTA’s plans because the company has yet to close on the transaction with the school.)
While Veale won’t be housing the campus, Baird predicts the property, and the area in general, will benefit greatly from it.
The school’s research centers and the thousands of well-trained graduates pumped out of its labs and lecture halls will attract big, cutting-edge companies to the region, officials say. New workers, who need places to shop and sleep, will encourage more retail and housing, market logic dictates.
“It will certainly accelerate growth,” Baird predicted. “And I think they picked this area because of their diligence and their knowledge that it really was kind of the epicenter of growth for Fort Worth.”
The costs of campuses
Researchers have mapped strong correlations between the creation of universities and long-term economic growth in the areas around them. High-tech companies tend to cluster around schools that specialize in high-tech subjects, and — with the right nourishment — form hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Even less sophisticated institutions of higher learning can be a boon to the local economy. Depending on their size, universities can provide hundreds to thousands of jobs to local residents. Student and faculty spending can stimulate a vibrant commercial atmosphere around the campus gates.
But some experts warn that establishing colleges and universities also has its downsides.
“All this wealth comes at a price,” said Davarian Baldwin, an urbanist and historian at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. “It gets passed on to the city. It gets passed on to the residents and the environment.”
These costs take different forms. Universities, non-profits or, in the case of UTA, public entities, are exempt from tax. The missing revenues can put pressure on city budgets if not properly absorbed. The shifted tax burden is often partly absorbed by surrounding properties, including households.
Fifty-one acres would amount to little more than a drop in Fort Worth’s taxable property pool. Still, Baldwin says, the project could exacerbate development disparities in the city.
“The question remains what the benefits are of focusing both public and private investment dollars on an area when there are many existing communities that could benefit from investment, while there is little discussion about how the prosperity from this campus might or might not trickle down to the rest of the city,” he said.
Big, shiny campuses can also drive up land values, Baldwin added, potentially pricing low- and middle-income households who work in the school’s cleaning crews and dining facilities out of the market.
“It is the low-income workers on these campuses who will bear the burden of long commutes and low wages, without policies that provide housing commitments for workers and resources that encourage mixed-income communities, especially in underdeveloped areas,” he said.
“Higher education can and does serve a public good, and we need higher education,” Baldwin continued. “To provide a public good, there must be public oversight and democratic arrangements.”
