Virginia Union University officials recently announced a partnership with the Steinbridge Group and the Student Freedom Initiative to build 130 to 200 residences on the northern edge of VUU’s campus. Attending the Feb. 2 announcement at the university’s Claude G. Perkins Living and Learning Center were Leonard L. Sledge, director of the Department of Economic Development for the City of Richmond; Ann-Frances Lambert, City Council vice president; Tawan Davis, Steinbridge Group founding partner and CEO; Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, VUU board chairman; Keith Shoates, COO of the Student Freedom Initiative; and Dr. Hakim Lucas, VUU president.
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‘Removing obstacles to growth’
VUU’s plan for $42M investment includes new housing, but not historic hospital
President Hakim J. Lucas used Virginia Union University’s Founders Day celebrations to announce a partnership with a New York-based development and investment firm to build affordable housing along Brook and Overbrook roads. The Steinbridge Group has committed $42 million to build 130 to 200 residences on the northern edge of VUU’s campus. During the Feb. 2 press conference, the group’s founder and CEO, Tawan Davis, said his firm had worked with business- man and philanthropist Robert F. Smith’s Student Freedom Initiative (SFI) to select VUU as the first HBCU to receive an investment as part of its $100 million initiative announced in November 2023. Its aim is to help HBCUs and other minority-serving institu- tions make underutilized assets economically productive, thereby diversifying their revenue streams and improving their financial situations and endowments. Mr. Davis estimated that Steinbridge’s investment in VUU will increase the university’s endowment 13% to 18%, as well as providing the school cash income 3.5 to 5.5 times greater than what would have resulted from the sale of the land in to- day’s market. He noted that while a significant number of Black professionals emerge from the HBCU system, the schools are funded 30% less than their counterparts and that the collective endowments of all HBCUs is less than the smallest Ivy League endowment. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, VUU’s board chair, said this project was a demonstration of thinking creatively about remov- ing the obstacles to growth.
