FGCU moving toward affordable workforce housing

College students get to live on campus, so why not faculty and staff?

Florida Gulf Coast University is considering just that.

“The reason we’re doing this is as an aid to help us attract and retain the best faculty and staff that we possibly can,” said Kitty Green, Vice President for Advancement at FGCU.

The Board of Trustees met Tuesday to discuss affordable workforce housing.

Green says between 7-13% of potential faculty and staff members are declining jobs because of housing costs.

“The idea is that it would be a transitional rental housing that we would offer at a discounted rate to our incoming faculty and staff who are unable to afford the housing rates,” said Green.

FGCU purchased land on the south side of Gulf Coast Town Center in 2011 and has been talking about affordable workforce housing since 2020, including building a rental apartment complex.

On Tuesday, they decided to move forward with one option and build about 50 units that would be owned by the university.

“If it works great, we can consider continuing on with it,” Green said. “If it doesn’t work, we still have three quarters of the parcel to use for other purposes.”

“I think this is very likely a good faith effort that might be a necessary one in the short term,” said Dr. Landon Frim, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at FGCU.

While Frim is hopeful, he also sees future drawbacks.

“The main concern I have is for the power and leverage of workers,” he said. “If they’re also dependent on the employer for housing, it reduces the bargaining power of workers.”

He also says housing isn’t the real problem.

“It’s less a question of what FGCU should be doing on the side of workforce housing and more what should be done on the side of wages,” Frim said.

“We are limited to the salaries that we can pay, but we do have a piece of land that we’re not using,” said Green. “If we can turn that into a benefit for the university, then that’s a good thing.”

The housing would be considered transitional housing.

Employees would sign annual leases on the units for up to three years.

The next step will be to issue an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) to builders to determine the cost.

Once the cost is established, FGCU can determine the level of discount it can offer on the units.