UF will take over Jupiter Scripps campus, 70 acres nearby. Check out the price tag.

JUPITER — The University of Florida has purchased The Scripps Research Institute's three buildings in Jupiter and 70 empty acres once reserved for Scripps nearby in Palm Beach Gardens.

Also included in the sale are the research institute's staff, equipment, $102 million in cash and investments, use of the Scripps name and – potentially the most valuable – all royalties from future discoveries or research projects at the campus.

The selling price? $100, according to an asset transfer agreement provided Jan. 14 to The Palm Beach Post by the University of Florida.

The move continues the complicated history between Palm Beach County and Scripps, one of the world's leading bioscience research organizations, and expands UF's footprint in the state's third-largest county.

Florida's flagship university already has announced plan to build a graduate campus in downtown West Palm Beach, the county seat.

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Scripps once promised a biotech village in Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens

The sale to UF is the latest development in a relationship between Palm Beach County, the state of Florida and Scripps that began nearly 20 years ago.

State and county taxpayers spent about $580 million to bring Scripps to Jupiter and create a biotech hub that then-Gov. Jeb Bush said would bring new technology and high-paying jobs to Florida.

Scripps received $310 million from the state and $269 million from Palm Beach County to build its campus. The deal was sealed in 2006, and Scripps opened in 2009, on land adjacent to Florida Atlantic University's Jupiter campus.

In addition, Palm Beach County bought 70 acres in the Palm Beach Gardens community now known as Alton, near Scripps at Interstate 95 and Donald Ross Road, to house biotech development. The land grew in worth to about $70 million.

But the village never was built.

Instead of biotech and pharmaceutical companies sprouting on the site, the still-vacant land was turned over to Scripps in May 2021 for just $1.

County government officials determined that although Scripps never built its life-sciences hub, it complied with its 15-year contract with the county by creating 545 jobs and was eligible to take over the Alton property.

That left taxpayers and leaders divided.

"This was about jobs and companies and bringing a life sciences hub to Palm Beach County," Peter Reed, a commercial real estate broker who worked with the late developer Bruce Rendina to coax Scripps to Jupiter, said at the time.

"This was supposed to be a mini-Research Triangle Park," referring to the famed North Carolina research district. "The taxpayers should still have a say."

Others urged patience at the site, which they said would develop into a biotech hub over decades, not months.

"This doesn't happen overnight," Mike Villella, Jupiter's finance director and a former biotech executive, said in April.

Now, development of the 70 acres will be up to UF.

The deal stipulates that Scripps researchers and employees will be transferred to UF Health at the same pay rate. Those who held tenured positions with Scripps will be likely to keep their tenure with UF.

UF gets a second sweet deal in Palm Beach County

As a new owner of the Scripps Research Institute, UF also expands its influence in Palm Beach County and bolsters its credentials as one of the top-rated public research universities in the country.

It comes at a time when UF is planning to build a campus in downtown West Palm Beach for 1,000 graduate students to take classes in financial services, financial technology and artificial intelligence.

After receiving unanimous support from elected officials in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County in September, plans for the downtown campus moved forward.

But commissioners were surprised to learn in December that the land they voted to donate to UF was more valuable than originally thought, and that UF was considering building a hotel on the property.

The property appraiser’s office gave the county-owned 5 acres of public land an assessed value of $12.8 million. But the market value of this land, based on the average of two appraisals sought by the county's staff, amounted to $42 million.

“I'm excited about the potential of this being a university and this being an institution of education. I wouldn’t be excited about handing over something of this value for the university to build a hotel," County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said at the time.

Commissioners are expected to vote later this month on terms for a deal with the University of Florida. UF representatives said space for a hotel or businesses in West Palm Beach would happen "down the road."

kkokal@pbpost.com

@katikokal

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Scripps sells Palm Beach County research campus to University of Florida