- September 8, 2026
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Since 1967, a plot of land surrounded by nobby-kneed cypress trees, moss-laden oaks and aging student apartments north of Fletcher Avenue in Tampa had been a hidden-away golf course the University of South Florida named “The Claw.”
USF lore says the name came from a tree on the 14th hole that bore a large and distinctive claw-shaped branch. The 120-acre property’s new name, though, has much deeper roots, USF President Moez Limayem says: Uptown Landing USF: a nearly $500 million extension of the university offering housing, restaurants, shops, a hotel and a major research center.
“Uptown isn't ours to invent; it's already Tampa's,” Limayem says. “It’s a name this district earned through decades of research, innovation, jobs and investment. We’re not creating a new identity here. We’re joining one and helping write its next chapter.”
Two past USF presidents, Judy Genshaft and Rhea Law, joined Limayem and other local dignitaries and officials at a groundbreaking for the project Tuesday.
USF “earned” its way into joining Tampa’s uptown developments through decades of research, innovation, jobs and investment, Limayem says. What the campus’ newest extension brings to the city is a new landing, he says — “a front door for USF, a gateway for this area, a place to arrive, to belong and to launch.”
The first phase of Uptown Landing USF is expected to open by fall 2028 and will transform about 27 acres north of Fletcher Avenue and east of North 46th Street. Plans call for 700 student housing beds, 150 apartments, four to six restaurants and other retail space, green areas and a 150-room hotel with a conference center.
A roughly 350,000-square-foot academic and research building, called the Translational Research Institute, is also planned. USF Board of Trustees Chair Mike Griffin says the facility is expected to have room for about 100 researchers whose work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, along with approximately 1,000 other researchers.
The project is one of the largest pieces of a broader transformation taking shape on USF’s Tampa campus. Uptown Landing USF’s footprint is within eyeshot of the university’s new on-campus football stadium, a $348 million project scheduled to open in time for the 2027 season. Together, Limayem says, the projects are intended to change how students, alumni, visitors and members of the broader community experience the university.
“People from across our region and beyond will come here to eat, shop, stay, explore and discover USF,” he says. “This will be a connector to our university, to our stadium and to our community.”
The project grew from a years-long effort to find a new purpose for The Claw, which USF closed in 2023. A longtime commercial real estate executive, Griffin says he began questioning the property’s future about seven years ago, when he was chair of the trustees’ finance committee and received a request to spend a substantial amount repairing the course’s aging golf-cart barn.
He drove to the course and looked around.
“I realized that this golf course no longer represented the greatness of the University of South Florida,” Griffin says. “Our standards had gone so much higher, but unfortunately, this incredible layout had not kept up with it.”
The trustees approved plans to redevelop the derelict golf course in September 2025. The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, authorized a public-private partnership plan that November.
USF is working with ACE Fletcher LLC, a Tampa-based development group comprising Capstone Development Partners, Capstone Communities, Aureate Development and Ellison Development on the project. Private developers will build and operate several components of Uptown Landing USF under long-term ground leases, while the university will continue to own the land. USF will also develop and fund the academic and research facility.
The privately developed portion of the first phase is expected to cost approximately $270 million, USF says, while the research building is estimated at about $225 million.
Hillsborough County commissioners unanimously committed $24 million in March for infrastructure and public-safety improvements connected to the development. During Tuesday’s ceremony, Griffin told the crowd that the state has contributed nearly $20 million toward the research building so far.
Hillsborough Commission Chair Ken Hagan says developments of Uptown Landing’s scale — the largest public-private partnership project in the history of Florida's State University System — are “extremely rare.”
USF’s project will not only transform an underused property, he says, but also add to the tax base and create a much needed gathering place for the surrounding community. The commission’s hope is to see the neighborhood become a new economic hub in an unincorporated part of the Tampa area once known colloquially as “suitcase city” due to its high turnover rate of renters, businesses and commuter students as well as a high poverty rate.
“USF is one of the county’s largest and most important economic engines,” Hagan says, citing more than 16,000 employees. “These developments are profound, and will not only enhance USF and the university area, but USF's overall transformation will play a critical role in Tampa's emergence as a world-class city.”
For decades, public officials and business leaders have sought to draw more investment to the university area and create a more cohesive district along the Fowler and Fletcher avenue corridors.
The former golf-course property covers about 138 acres and sits beside USF’s roughly 600-acre Forest Preserve. The university says the preserve itself will not be affected by the development. Still, environmental advocates have raised concerns that removing the old golf course will eliminate a buffer that protects the preserve from noise, light, pollution and invasive species.
USF says it plans to maintain a buffer along the preserve’s edge and incorporate green and recreational spaces throughout the new district.
Once completed, though, Uptown Landing USF will serve as a bridge for the university to reach beyond its campus boundary.
“This won’t be remembered for its buildings,” Limayem says. “It will be remembered for the people who cross paths here who otherwise wouldn’t have.”
