FGCU building first employee housing community in State University System
- Drew Sterwald
- Faculty and Staff
- Contributors: Rob Salazar, Photos
5 – minute read
With Southwest Florida home prices hampering efforts to recruit and retain top talent, Florida Gulf Coast University developed a blueprint for employee housing that’s below market price and conveniently close to campus.
Eagle View Village, the first community of its kind among Florida’s 12 state universities, is under construction about 2 miles north of campus on FGCU-owned land near the West Lake Village student housing complex and Gulf Coast Town Center. The project’s first phase of 74 units is scheduled for completion in December and for tenants to move in beginning in January 2027.
The village’s one-, two- and three-bedroom cottages and townhomes are being built by Naples-based Soltura Development Group, which has developed four rental communities in Fort Myers and Bonita Springs. Operations will be managed by FGCU through a property management company.
Faculty hired from outside Southwest Florida will have priority access to Eagle View Village homes, with annual leases renewable for up to two additional years. During the initial leasing period, current full-time faculty and staff also have the opportunity to apply.
The project aligns with FGCU’s 2024-29 strategic plan, which includes a goal to strengthen organizational culture and commitment to employees.
“Over the past five years, Southwest Florida has experienced a 28% increase in housing prices, intensifying affordability challenges in south Lee County and affecting our ability to recruit and retain talented faculty and staff,” FGCU President Aysegul Timur said. “Our goal is to provide employees with a high-quality, transitional housing option at approximately 20% below local market rates. It represents a meaningful investment in our people and reinforces our commitment to strengthening organizational culture and supporting those who move the needle for student success — our mission — every day.”
Employee housing was years in the making
The initiative to build employee housing began under the leadership of Mike Martin, FGCU’s president from 2017 to 2023. Katherine Green, vice president of University Advancement and executive director of the FGCU Foundation, steered the project from its conception about six years ago through two previous proposals before the current version was finalized.
“Honestly, it’s difficult to do housing at an affordable price,” Green said. “We engaged a couple of board members with expertise, and they suggested that instead of doing big, multifamily buildings, we should do smaller detached buildings — called horizontal apartments — that are less expensive to build. And they suggested starting with just one phase — not the whole thing — and suddenly it becomes a little more affordable. Their advice was key.”
The concept gained approval from FGCU’s Board of Trustees and the Florida Board of Governors. The $25 million project is being funded primarily from bonds issued by the FGCU Financing Corporation and a $2.3 million contribution from the university. The bonds are to be repaid from net revenues generated by the project. Also, the FGCU Foundation has agreed to provide additional security to guarantee debt service coverage requirements.
Research commissioned by the university in January 2025 noted that the market “continues to underdeliver moderately priced rental options, compounding affordability challenges in south Lee County.”
“We have experienced a lot of sticker shock when faculty come down here and realize that Southwest Florida is a beautiful place to live, but it’s also expensive,” Green said. “So we thought that if we could give them a place to land for a period of time that is beautiful and convenient and gives them time to figure out where they want to be permanently, that that might help us attract the very best faculty and hold on to them.”
Room to grow, based on demand
Construction of the first phase of Eagle View Village began last November on 24 acres FGCU has owned since 2013. If additional phases are built utilizing the same type of buildings, the community could be expanded to as many as 195 total units.
“This is just phase one of the project, and we hope that it will show that the demand is there and that the economics actually work for this project so that we can go on and build phase two and be able to accommodate more of our faculty and staff,” Green said. “We have done market studies that show that there is more than enough demand.”
For more details, including open house opportunities for current faculty and staff, go to the Eagle View Village website.
