How Miami leaders celebrated a ‘transformational’ campus and a $3 billion gift

State and local leaders descended on Wynwood Thursday to celebrate a Carnegie Mellon University campus and the multibillion-dollar donation from Miami hedge fund executive and philanthropist Ken Griffin that made it possible.

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Carnegie Mellon announced plans this week to open a branch in Miami’s Wynwood area, backed by $2 billion from the Citadel CEO and founder. Griffin and Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian confirmed the plans in an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald earlier this week.

“CMU truly represents the best that America has to offer,” Griffin told a crowd of Carnegie Mellon students, professors and trustees, as well as Citadel employees, local officials and civic leaders at the venue UNLOCKED Wynwood.

Griffin spoke alongside Jahanian, as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins at the launch event for Carnegie Mellon University Miami.

Griffin’s gift, which totaled $3 billion, was the billionaire’s largest ever and the largest ever single gift to an institution of higher education, according to Carnegie Mellon. In addition to the $2 billion Griffin is giving to the university’s Miami campus, he’s giving another $1 billion to Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus.

“This is transformational,” Higgins told reporters before the event. “We have great educational institutions here, but we have nothing on the scale of what Carnegie Mellon brings.”

Jahanian praised Miami’s existing ecosystem of colleges and universities, including the University of Miami, Florida International University and Miami Dade College. The university president previously told the Herald that Carnegie Mellon plans to collaborate with Miami Dade College and possibly other local schools, too.

“Miami is a city with the ambition to imagine something new and the entrepreneurial energy to build it,” Jahanian said at Thursday’s event.

The university president emphasized that CMU Miami’s academic programs will focus on finding innovative solutions to major challenges facing our world, rather than traditional majors and departments.

Levine Cava thanked Griffin, whom she called a “supercitizen,” in her remarks, adding that she thinks this campus will bring “inclusive and lasting prosperity” to Miami-Dade.

DeSantis said he believes the new campus will be good for both the Miami area and the entire state of Florida. He added that he “underestimated” the philanthropy Griffin would bring to the area when he first moved Citadel’s headquarters to Miami in 2022.

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The Carnegie Mellon campus will replace Mana Wynwood, an event venue that hosts festivals, expos and conferences. Businessman Moishe Mana sold the property to Griffin for around $1.1 billion.

Griffin is donating the site to Carnegie Mellon, said Paul Darrah, Citadel’s chief workplace officer, at a news appearance after the event.

For years, Mana was the largest private landowner in Wynwood. But at an appearance after Thursday’s event, Mana told reporters he plans to shift his focus to downtown Miami, where he owns around 80 properties.

During his remarks, Griffin thanked Mana, who began buying property in the neighborhood more than 15 years ago, for his “vision” in Wynwood.

Construction on the campus is expected to begin next year. Darrah said CMU Miami is aiming to enroll its first graduate students in 2028, and its first class of undergraduates, an estimated 1,000 students, will come in 2032, he said.

Eventually the enrollment at Carnegie Mellon’s Miami campus is expected to surpass 3,500 graduate and undergraduate students. The campus will also support around 300 faculty and 600 staff.

Carnegie Mellon University Miami, which will be master planned by the Baltimore firm Ayers Saint Gross, will have dormitories, classrooms and research and development facilities, Darrah said. He declined to comment on whether Griffin had plans to develop residential or commercial projects in Wynwood to supplement the new campus.

Darrah said he thinks Carnegie Mellon’s new campus will help strengthen Miami’s economy, like the university’s main campus has done in Pittsburgh.

“CMU has maintained and brought an ecosystem of businesses and startups within Pittsburgh,” Darrah said. “We think the same is going to happen in Miami.”

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This story was originally published October 1, 2026 at 3:00 PM.