(March 20): Avenues, a private school operator, has abandoned plans to build a sprawling campus in the heart of Miami aimed at wealthy transplants willing to pay at least US$48,500 (RM227,207) a year.
The owners of the for-profit institution have “indefinitely suspended” development of the US$180 million campus due to financing challenges and there’s no plan to revive the project, according to spokeswoman Tara Powers. The site in Miami’s Little Haiti neighbourhood, which was on track to open next fall, would have been one of Miami’s largest private schools, serving about 2,500 students.
The decision is a major blow for a city where there aren’t enough prestigious schools to absorb demand from wealthy families moving south. Enrolment at top private schools in South Florida, including Miami, has jumped by more than 7% since 2019, almost triple the national increase, according to an analysis by the National Association of Independent Schools.
The expansion of financial firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, along with the relocation of Citadel’s headquarters by Ken Griffin, has intensified the demand for private education. The surge has led to lengthy waitings lists at established institutions like Gulliver Prep, Miami Country Day and Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, which have all expanded or are planning to do so.
Spots are so tight in elite grade schools that some potential newcomers have made securing space for their children a condition of their job relocation.
Avenues spent years working on the Miami development, starting in 2018 with the US$60 million acquisition of a former Catholic school site by a trust tied to the heirs of The Gap’s founders. The city of Miami granted final approval for the Avenues project in January 2023. Avenues had hoped to set the tuition for the Miami school at US$48,500 per year, starting with preschool kids.
The owners of the 15-acre Miami site are now exploring various options for the property, which hasn’t been listed for sale, Powers said.
The collapse of the Miami school project is part of a dramatic change of fortune for Avenues, which had carved out a prestigious niche educating the children of the rich.
Last year, Avenues, whose founders include ex-Yale University president Benno Schmidt and former Esquire magazine owner Chris Whittle, announced plans to sell its elite schools in New York and Sao Paulo to Nord Anglia Education, telling parents that changing financial markets had made it difficult to fund plans to grow. The press office for Nord Anglia didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Avenues will exit China, where it has long operated a school in Shenzhen, and its sole remaining school in Santa Clara, the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, and its online programme will be renamed, Powers said.