University of South Florida (USF) Lakeland currently shares a campus with Polk County Community College, but will relocate to a new campus to be built on a vacant 175-acre site at the intersection of two major thoroughfares. The new campus will offer majors in Business, Engineering, Information Technology, Nutrition, and Education. At the time of this project, the University campus had a student headcount population of 2,000 and was experiencing vigorous growth.

The space program prepared for USF Lakeland included a full complement of academic, administrative, residential, and recreational spaces and will be developed in two phases. The first phase will culminate in the opening of the campus in 2008-09 with an estimated headcount enrollment of 3,500. The second phase will support a projected headcount enrollment of some 9,000 students in 2013-14. Ultimately, 16,000 headcount students are anticipated to enroll.

As part of the program, Rickes Associates (RA) provided well-benchmarked space planning guidelines. These guidelines were derived from an extensive national review of space benchmarks and planning parameters, and then synthesized to reflect best practices. (2005)