USF Polytechnic - Chickens have come to roost

[ctbrown24]

I passed by the campus yesterday on I4. Wow. All that land in Polk county and they build it right next to a highway? Also, it was at the Auburndale exit. I thought it was actually in Lakeland.

[USFan]

I think USF friends, students, admin, and alumni will be heard loud and clear if Florida Poly goes to UF. It should go back to us... period!

[Paisa el Toro]

I think USF friends, students, admin, and alumni will be heard loud and clear if Florida Poly goes to UF. It should go back to us... period!

 

 

Gators have legislators, we'd just have an angry mob. We need more legislators at the state level.

[charsibb]

:angrymob: :angrymob: :angrymob: :angrymob:

[Oldsmobull]

What is House Speaker Weatherford smoking thinking USF Poly could maybe hookup with Stanford or MIT? I'm sure MIT engineers want to build a pipeline to funnel millions of dollars to a bottomless sinkhole in Lakeland. UF would probably like to get the Lakeland school...UF is built out in Gainesville and UF is always looking for sources of additional revenue, turning Fl Poly into a UF branch/diploma factory would fit the bill for UF.

 

Fl Poly should be shut down and turned back over to USF or even Polk State College before giving the Lakeland setup to UF.

[Bullshutter]

I passed by the campus yesterday on I4. Wow. All that land in Polk county and they build it right next to a highway? Also, it was at the Auburndale exit. I thought it was actually in Lakeland.

 

The Williams Company owns the land from their mining days.  They basically donated the land so the state could build a university on it and thus improve property values for the rest of their surrounding holdings.  Here is an old map of the original plans.

 

 

The layout of the campus has changed from that map but you can see Williams still has plenty to develop outside of campus.  This is similar to what happened in California with UC-Irvine and the Irvine Company

[Oldsmobull]

The I-4 corridor is destined to grow and develop much like southern California.  Too bad the bullet train wasn't allowed to be built between Tampa Bay and Orlando.

[Paisa el Toro]

The I-4 corridor is destined to grow and develop much like southern California.  Too bad the bullet train wasn't allowed to be built between Tampa Bay and Orlando.

 

 

Been hearing this for a while now, but I'm not seeing it happen. Not enough STEM jobs between Tampa and Orlando to help prompt this kind of development. Without the STEM jobs, the STEM graduates aren't going to be sticking around. I know at least 5 USF engineers from this past graduating class that had to go out to California or Texas to find good-paying gigs.

[Reliable Source]

Anybody have newspaper connections to forward this to? Only with permission of course, but other public universities are suffering as a result of this folly as well. I would think widespread readership in FL would be very interested in the insight laid out here. I've got a few inroads at Palm Beach Post and Treasure Coast Palm that I would be happy to forward to.

[smazza]

this is insane stuff

 

that educated people sign off on these white elephants

 

florida must be flush with cash