EDITOR'S NOTE: To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Florida Gulf Coast University, WGCU Public Media presents "FGCU: The Beginning." The series chronicles the key founders and events that led up to Aug. 25, 1997, when the campus first opened. As the finale for the series, a half-hour television documentary will air on Aug. 24 at 8pm. Learn more about the series here.
When the idea first came to him that the state’s tenth university could be built on Alico, Inc., land, the company’s chair and president was thinking in terms of a lucrative real estate deal.
“Up until that time, all state university lands were sold to the state to site the university,” said Ben Hill Griffin, III. “So…we started off thinking we were going to sell this land to the state of Florida.”
With 23 sites offered for free to the state in Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties, the land owner quickly realized he needed to shift gears.
“It turned out we ended up giving it to them. So, it was the largest gift to the state of Florida for a university,” he said, adding that the donated 760 acres has been valued at $50 million.
Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) would likely be situated in Fort Myers’ Gateway area were it not for Griffin’s ability to out-maneuver his main competitor.
“Ben Hill did a tremendous job in marketing and selling this site,” said Charlie Edwards, Fort Myers’ representative on the board of regents that selected the Alico site.
“I think he felt a bit challenged,” said Edwards. “His dad was extremely successful and a very tough, practical person. He kept most of his employees, including his family, under his thumb.”
Since his father had passed away in 1990, Griffin was on his own to make the deal happen.
The Griffin Family
Griffin’s grandfather initially worked in the phosphate industry, then he invested in citrus and cattle. When his father got married, he got a citrus grove from his dad as a wedding present. For his graduation, his dad gave him 100 shares in Alico stock.
“It’s grown quite well from then,” said Griffin. “Alico was instituted in 1960 as a spin-off of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. They had lands in excess to their railroad needs. And, so they took those lands and they formed Alico, Inc.”
In the early 1970s, Ben Hill Griffin, Jr., acquired controlling interest in Alico. Lands included about 10,000 acres around where FGCU was sited.
“We envisioned that this would be developed, but over a much longer number of years,” said Griffin, III. “So, it hastened the development of this area when the university site was selected.”
Giving back to the state of Florida’s university system had been a tradition for Griffin’s father, who attended the University of Florida for three years, then went on to make a fortune without a degree.
“I think even Charlie Reed - who was chancellor of the regents - said later there was a recognition of Ben Hill Griffin’s political connections and everything he had done for the state and for the governor and for the University of Florida,” said Betty Parker, reporter for the News-Press who covered the beginnings of FGCU.
Site Selection Process
As part of the authorizing legislation, a site selection committee was appointed to oversee a matrix of criteria. The first step was a request for proposals.
“What came out of this process was a great surprise to all of us -- a great surprise in that so many large land owners in southwest Florida offered to give their land to the state for the creation of this university,” said Keith Arnold, a state representative from Fort Myers who sponsored the legislation.
Since the committee was charged with making the best site recommendation, including cost effectiveness, land owners then turned to offering more than just land. Griffin’s proposal went into the final hearing in Tallahassee already promising to fund two endowed chairs at $2 million and a donation of 250 more acres to the FGCU Foundation. Westinghouse’s proposal included research facilities and employees.
At that hearing, it came down to the Alico site vs. the Westinghouse site in Gateway.
“Well that was quite a day. It was February 17,1992, as a matter of fact,” recalled Griffin. “Westinghouse had a nice piece of property up close to Fort Myers. But, their property was flawed as a university site due to a waste area for garbage.”
As Arnold explained it, that wasn’t enough to preclude Westinghouse from being awarded the contract.
“You can close landfills - which it ultimately was,” said Arnold. “I mean, they’ve got a golf course next to it right now. And they’ve got condos and million dollar homes next to it right now. And Westinghouse knew that, the state knew that, and Ben Hill Griffin knew that.”
But, Griffin had put months into strategizing how he was going to win the negotiation.
Dirt Farmers vs. Big Corp.
“They called us the dirt farmers, that’s what Westinghouse called us. They were so full of themselves…they thought they were going to win it,” said Ben Hill Griffin, III. “That set the fire under our feet. And, we had hired a number of experts in all the different fields to enhance our selection process.”
At the final hearing, Griffin upped his offering beyond Westinghouse’s immediate bargaining capacity.
“Ben Hill Griffin had already made his presentation to the committee,” said Keith Arnold. “But, he was feeling as if it might not go his way. And, he stood up out of his chair in the audience and he walked back to the podium, and he pulled out his wallet. And he said I’ll put a million more dollars of my money into this if you select my property.”
That amount of sweetening exceeded anything else Westinghouse could offer on the spot, without corporate consult, he added.
“Eventually, Ben Hill Griffin just out-did everybody on the offer,” said reporter Betty Parker.
At the time, there was virtually no development on the east side of I-75 in the Alico corridor. Even Arnold said he was opposed to the Alico site, preferring ones with infrastructure in Fort Myers.
“The competition was very, very intense,” said Arnold. “And, there was a lot of tension, and a lot at stake. And we all knew that wherever this university went, beside it there would be tremendous growth around it and tremendous economic opportunity for whoever won the RFP.”
Supporting that projection, Griffin led Alico until 2004, selling off all the other land it owned surrounding the university for a reported $300 million. In a show of appreciation for his generous gift of land, the Lee County Board of Commissioners renamed the section of Treeline Avenue leading to campus as Ben Hill Griffin Parkway.
Griffin, who serves on FGCU’s Foundation Board, considered the location of the university to have advantages for more donors to follow his philanthropic lead.
“Our site was halfway between Fort Myers and Naples,” said Griffin. “It’s worked magically, attracting attention to those in the position to give to the university -- to attract both areas, and actually all of southwest Florida.”