When Gov. Rick Scott
cut $461,387,164 out of the state's annual budget in June, he cut a ton of money for some downtown Orlando projects that were counting on state support to come true. One of those projects was construction of a downtown campus of the University of Central Florida, which had originally hoped to get state support to the tune of $57 million to bring its downtown vision to life. But legislators slashed all but $15 million from their version of the budget – then Scott had his way with it, leaving UCF with no state support for the project at all.
This week,
the school revealed that it has a new plan for funding the downtown campus, which will split the $60 million it needs to make it happen between the state, private donors and "university resources." If that works out, it'll mean that UCF's Center for Emerging Media, which is already located downtown, would get a renovation to turn unused space in the building into classrooms and labs to make room for more than 1,300 UCF and Valencia College students. The project also includes plans for a new academic building, a facility to house Valencia College's culinary and hospitality programs, parking for 600 cars and both private and university-run student housing. UCF says the plan would bring more than 7,300 students to downtown Orlando.
According to the
Central Florida Future, if funding is secured, the new campus could be up and running in 2018.
Check out UCF's revised
plans for the downtown campus here.
