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.