Dr. Phillips Charities donates additional $4 million to UCF downtown campus

DR. PHILLIPS  The University of Central Florida’s downtown campus is one step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to a recent $4 million donation from Dr. Phillips Charities.

As part of the $60 million project, UCF needed to secure $20 million — one-third of the total budget — in private donations. Another third is set to come from state money, and the last portion will come from UCF’s budget.

Dr. Phillips Charities previously donated $3 million to the project back in March, but added a second donation because it believes that the downtown campus will have a positive impact on the community.

“UCF has been a wonderful partner over the years and have been good stewards of the money given to them,” Robinson said in a previous interview back in March. “We like the program they’re looking at bringing downtown, and since we’ve supported them in other areas we thought it was critical to support them in their mission to move downtown.”

The downtown campus will be built on the site of the old Orlando Magic arena. Plans include a 165,000-square-foot academic building shared by UCF and Valencia College, student housing and a parking garage.

Downtown Orlando is already home to UCF’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy.

Contact Danielle Hendrix at [email protected].