Continuing on former Mayor London Breed's efforts to attract a university to create a new satellite campus in SF's still semi-vacant downtown, Mayor Daniel Lurie's office is reportedly in talks with Nashville-based Vanderbilt University.

The Chronicle had the news Monday morning of Vanderbilt's interest in coming to SF, after the school has already built satellite campuses in New York City and West Palm Beach, and as it tries to expand its offerings to grow its main campus of 13,000 students. The university said it was "optimistically exploring" the possibility of an SF hub.

"Vanderbilt is always exploring new opportunities to expand our impact and further our mission," the school said in a statement to the paper. "We recognize the long-term global leadership of San Francisco and its ever-growing potential, defined by a vibrant culture, dynamic innovation ecosystem and the talent drawn to its leading technology companies and top-caliber arts and cultural institutions. This powerful combination is why we are optimistically exploring the possibility of establishing a presence downtown, working closely with Mayor Daniel Lurie and his team."

Mayor Daniel Lurie also put out a statement about the talks, saying, "Our administration is working every day to create a clean, safe and thriving downtown — one that draws people, businesses and investments back to our city. As I said during my campaign, welcoming a world-class university like Vanderbilt to our city would bring new energy and foot traffic downtown, and we will continue working to make that happen."

Reportedly, the city's new economic development chief, Ned Segal, has met with the university several times.

There is no word on what site or sites might be getting considered.

During her last two years in office, former Mayor London Breed had also talked to multiple universities about the potential for building a satellite campus in downtown San Francisco, including the University of California — which ultimately passed on the idea last summer. Another program that seemed to be getting rolling in early 2024 was to attract a historically black college or university to the city, but nothing ever came of that plan as far as we heard.

Already downtown we have Golden Gate University, whose 210,000-square-foot Brutalist complex at 536 Mission is apparently sitting largely unused, despite enrollment being up thanks to online classes. The school, which offers degree programs in ccounting, business, financial planning, taxation, and psychological counseling, put its building up for sale in recent years but hasn't had any takers.

The Wharton School of Business also already has a presence in downtown SF, a 35,000-square-foot West Coast campus on the Embarcadero that's it's had for over a decade. As we heard in April, that school's expansion plans had it looking at taking over The Cube at 345 Montgomery Street, which would mean the ouster of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco — which is taking advantage of a limited-time free-rent deal at the space, having moved there last fall.

Previously: University of California Might Give London Breed That SF Expansion Campus She’s Been Hankering For