Florida town accidentally sells municipal water tower; no impact on FAMU's assets

FAMU owns the Brooksville Agricultural and Environmental Research Station (BAERS), a total of 3,812.5 acres with 19 buildings, 2,830 square feet of laboratories, 3,600 square feet of office space, and a variety of other support structures, located in Brooksville, Florida. The assets were granted to FAMU from USDA-ARS in Oct. 2015, to support the university's land grant mission. Additionally, FAMU has a 25-year partnership with Duke Energy Florida for a Solar Farm (Duke Energy Rattler Solar Power Plant) that provides 74.9 MW of clean, renewable power to the grid at BAERS and help further the development and research of solar technologies, plant operations and workforce expansion. The solar farm occupies 600-800 acres and generates an income for FAMU of $850 per usable acrea with a 2.5 percent annual escalation. FAMU received funding of $350K for additional wells and water lines in the Fiscal Year 2021-22 approved State Budget. So, the sale of the Brooksville Municipal Water Tower had no adverse impact on FAMU's BAERS, but it gave me an opportunity to talk about a small spec of the "A&M" activities of the #1 HBCU, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

Florida city accidentally sells its water tower https://t.co/YuvAVW40xN via @gazettextra

— Dbandman (@Dbandman2) June 14, 2021