Vanderbilt University to Open San Francisco Campus at CCA’s Potrero Hill Site

Vanderbilt University is moving into San Francisco with a new satellite campus planned for the current Potrero Hill home of California College of the Arts, formalizing months of speculation about a local expansion by the Nashville-based institution.

Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the deal Tuesday morning, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, confirming that Vanderbilt will establish what its chancellor is calling “Vanderbilt University San Francisco” at CCA’s campus on the border of Potrero Hill and Mission Bay. The site sits roughly six blocks from Chase Center, in a part of the city that has seen significant growth tied to technology, life sciences, and new housing.

The move effectively gives Vanderbilt control of the campus of California College of the Arts, which local coverage has described as facing an uncertain future. A CCA press release cited in the article says Vanderbilt also plans to operate a “CCA Institute at Vanderbilt” as part of the new footprint. That institute is expected to include the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, maintain CCA’s archival materials, and serve as a hub for engagement with CCA alumni.

The Vanderbilt San Francisco campus is projected to open for the 2027–28 academic year, but the article notes that the plan still depends on various state and federal regulatory approvals. The new campus is expected to serve about 1,000 students, which the article points out is relatively modest in terms of potential economic impact.

Lurie framed Vanderbilt’s decision as a sign of confidence in San Francisco’s trajectory. “Vanderbilt’s decision to invest in our city is a powerful testament to the fact that San Francisco is on the rise,” he said in a press release. He added that his administration is working to build a “thriving city core where people live, work, play and learn,” and said Vanderbilt will carry forward California College of the Arts’ legacy by continuing “the work of educating the next generation of creative leaders in our city.”

University leader Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt’s chancellor, used the name “Vanderbilt University San Francisco” in describing the project. At Tuesday’s press conference, he summarized the goal for the new campus as “to create a place that creates creators.” Diermeier highlighted San Francisco’s “vibrant startup ecosystem,” its concentration of global technology firms and talent, and its “deeply rooted arts and design communities” as key reasons for the expansion. He said those elements will enable students and faculty to pursue experiential learning, internships, venture creation, and research in the city.

The article interprets this emphasis on startups and technology as a sign that Vanderbilt prioritized proximity to the innovation clusters in Dogpatch, Potrero Hill, and Mission Bay over a presence in San Francisco’s traditional downtown core. City officials had previously been working to recruit a university tenant for downtown as part of broader efforts to stabilize and reposition the area.

For months, there had been what the article describes as a hopeful rumor that Vanderbilt might open a downtown San Francisco campus, following years of local leaders courting universities to help revive the central business district. Previous reporting cited in the piece noted that Vanderbilt was at one point exploring a potential downtown location, including the Chronicle building or the nearby 5M development, both owned by Hearst. According to the article, the choice of the Potrero Hill site is likely to disappoint the Chronicle’s parent company, which had apparently eyed the university as a potential anchor tenant for those properties.

Instead, Vanderbilt’s move is tied directly to the fate of California College of the Arts. The article describes CCA as “effectively doomed” and facing an “uncertain future,” citing other local reporting. Under the current plan, CCA will continue to operate long enough to graduate students in the 2026–27 academic year. After that, remaining CCA students will have to apply to transfer either to Vanderbilt or to other institutions. The article does not provide details on how those transfer pathways will work or what conditions Vanderbilt might offer to CCA students.

A key component of the arrangement, according to CCA’s own announcement referenced in the piece, is the creation of the CCA Institute at Vanderbilt. This institute is expected to preserve parts of CCA’s identity within the new Vanderbilt campus, maintaining the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts and CCA archival collections while providing a structure for ongoing alumni involvement. Specific academic programs, staffing plans, and governance details for the institute are not described in the article.

The announcement event itself included some unexpected drama. The article notes that Mayor Lurie welcomed Vanderbilt and Diermeier in a press conference Tuesday morning, but that the event was cut short due to a medical emergency involving someone identified only as “Marv.” No additional information on that incident or the person’s condition is provided.

While city officials have positioned university expansion as one potential tool to help revive San Francisco’s struggling downtown, the article stresses that Vanderbilt’s choice of the Potrero Hill campus limits its direct impact on the central core. The campus will still bring a new student and faculty population into the southeast part of the city, near existing technology, biotech, and sports facilities, but on a scale that the article characterizes as unlikely to serve as a major economic engine.

The story also situates the decision in a longer arc of local policy and speculation. San Francisco officials, including prior administrations, have for years tried to attract a major university expansion, specifically in the downtown area. The article references earlier reporting that the University of California had been considering an expansion in San Francisco and that Vanderbilt had been exploring a downtown site before opting for the CCA campus instead.

As of now, the concrete timeline is that CCA continues through at least the 2026–27 academic year, Vanderbilt works through the necessary regulatory processes, and the Vanderbilt University San Francisco campus opens in 2027–28 if those approvals are granted. Details about how existing CCA faculty and staff may or may not transition to Vanderbilt are not covered in the article. The piece also does not specify what academic programs Vanderbilt plans to prioritize in San Francisco beyond its broad focus on arts, design, technology, and entrepreneurship.

For San Francisco, the project represents a high profile out of town university planting a flag in a growing but still evolving section of the city, rather than the central business district that political leaders have often highlighted. For CCA’s community, it marks a turning point in which the physical campus and some institutional assets are set to continue under a new banner, while the long term future of the college as an independent entity remains uncertain.