State: Orlando gets vote for FAMU law school

TALLAHASSEE -- The home of a new law school for Florida's historically black university should be in Orlando -- not Tampa, a state selection committee recommended Tuesday.

Committee members ranked Tampa third of the four sites competing for the Florida A&M University law school, saying they preferred Orlando's downtown location and the city's pledge to raise $15-million to build the new public law school.

The committee chairman also said he was worried about environmental problems at Tampa's proposed site, the old police headquarters north of downtown.

The Orlando decision surprised and irked Tampa supporters, from city officials to community boosters to incoming state Senate President John McKay. Tampa officials vowed to continue to fight for the Tampa site before the Board of Regents makes its decision next week.

"It seems as though the whole process to date has been quite prejudicial against Tampa, and that is far from objective," said McKay, the Bradenton Republican slated to become Senate president in November.

Flexing his new influence over state spending, McKay said he made it clear to FAMU President Frederick Humphries that the law school should be in Tampa. He said that was the desire of the two lawmakers who strongly pushed the project last legislative session: state Sen. James Hargrett, D-Tampa, and state Rep. Rudy Bradley, R-St. Petersburg.

"Humphries was very open to it (the Tampa location)," McKay said. "If he wasn't open to it, I wasn't too interested in helping him."

It is now up to Humphries and state university system Chancellor Adam Herbert to review the site selection committee's recommendation and make their own recommendation to the regents.

The Legislature's approval of a law school this spring set off a frenzy of competition from cities that want the prestige of a law school. Lawmakers hope to increase the number of black lawyers in the state: Just 2 percent of Florida's 64,000 lawyers are black.

FAMU's law school will recruit students in the state and around the world, offering a traditional three-year curriculum for full-time students as well as specialties in civil rights, international, sports, environmental and entertainment law. The school will also offer a four-year program for part-time students.

The five-member site selection committee analyzed proposals, hired consultants and visited the four proposed law school sites -- Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Orlando and Tampa -- before making its recommendation Tuesday.

The sites were ranked based on points given for a variety of factors, including cash and property donations by the cities, and the location, size and condition of the proposed sites.

Orlando got 2,258.45 points; Lakeland, 2,109.10 points; Tampa, 2,099.60 points; and Daytona Beach, 1,923.05 points.

Tampa's bid was hurt most by two of the three FAMU staff members on the site selection committee, provost James Ammons and Reginald Mitchell, executive assistant to Humphries.

Both men ranked Orlando considerably higher than Tampa. Ammons gave Orlando 475.20 points, compared with 396.25 points for Tampa. Mitchell gave Orlando 486.15 points, compared with 421 for Tampa. The other three committee members gave Orlando only 2 to 10 more points than Tampa.

Tampa had pledged $5-million in cash -- and the chamber of commerce offered to come up with more if necessary -- for the law school. Tampa also offered to donate the site of its old police headquarters just north of downtown. Environmental problems had been identified at the site, including underground storage tanks, but the city promised to pay the cost of the cleanup.

"All I can say is that based on their criteria, we furnished one of the best sites in Florida," Tampa Mayor Dick Greco said Tuesday. "It's an excellent, excellent piece of property. The building and property are worth $11-million. With what we offered, they could have had a law school and money left over."

Greco wasn't the only one perplexed Tuesday.

"It's one of the more unusual results I can imagine," said Bill McBride, managing partner at the Holland & Knight law firm and chairman of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. "I'm puzzled about the rankings. I'm disappointed.

"We think we put the most cash on the table and agreed to give a site free of any environmental problems. We also said we'd match anyone else's offer. In some ways, I think we even went overboard to pull out all the stops."

McBride said the Tampa coalition would lobby the Board of Regents on the final decision for the law school site, but added, "The other cities will certainly do the same thing."

Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Pat Frank wondered if the history of the Florida Classic worked against Tampa. The annual football game showcasing the FAMU Rattlers was moved from Tampa to Orlando in 1997 following complaints by fans and alumni of unfair treatment by hotels and retailers.

"There was a lot of conjecture that we were being punished for the Florida Classic problem," Frank said. "There may be more reality to that than we thought."

Committee members insisted Tuesday that the past problems between FAMU and Tampa didn't affect their scoring.

"The things that happened in the past have no bearing on Tampa's ability to deliver or facilitate our delivery of a world-class law school," Ammons said.

Orlando's site was "gorgeous," he said, a prime downtown location near other state office buildings and a federal courthouse under construction. Orlando offered 3.77-acres, the smallest site offered by any city, and law school consultants had cited the size as a disadvantage.

But committee members said there was plenty of room for law school buildings at the site. And Orlando also identified a 10-acre piece of property in the same downtown area that could be used for the law school if necessary.

Orlando pledged a cash contribution of $1.45-million, which was less than Tampa's cash offer. But Orlando offered to come up with $15-million and already had staff and a strategy in place to raise the money, said Louis Murray, chairman of the site-selection committee.

If Orlando ultimately is picked, the law school will anchor redevelopment efforts for Orlando's Parramore district, a historically black and economically depressed neighborhood.

- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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