Fidelity gives Bryant a building to expand its Smithfield campus

Fidelity Investments donated this building at 100 Salem St. in Smithfield, R.I., to Bryant University.Bryant University

Fidelity Investments is giving Bryant University a 250,000-square-foot building and 30 acres across the street from its Smithfield campus, providing the school with a new home for its College of Business.

Most Fidelity employees are working a hybrid schedule, spending just one week a month at the corporate campus, so that’s allowing the financial services company to donate 100 Salem St. to Bryant. And that represents the most significant real estate gift since Earl Tupper (of Tupperware fame) gave the college farmland for the Smithfield campus in 1967, college officials said.

”We are excited about this opportunity,” Bryant University President Ross Gittell told the Globe. “It has major implications for this part of the New England region. We will be able to have a world-class business education facility and provide highly skilled, real-world-ready graduates who meet the needs of our local and national employers.”

Originally located in Providence, Bryant has been in Rhode Island for 160 years and in Smithfield for 50 years, Gittell noted. “We see this as a third phase of growth and a big investment in the future of Rhode Island,” he said. “It’s a very generous gift.”

Bryant Economics Professor Edinaldo Tebaldi, the school’s executive director of strategic planning and institutional effectiveness, said the university will invest about $35 million in the building over the next few years. Bryant will build out the structure to include classrooms, entrepreneurial innovation space, and labs. The facility will also include faculty and administrative offices, plus meeting and gathering spaces.

In addition to the College of Business, the building will house the Graduate Programs office, the Executive Education and Career Accelerator, and the Women’s Leadership Institute. Plans call for moving offices to the building in the fall and holding the first classes there in spring 2024.

”Pursuing this gift will further strengthen our commitment to financial education and support for the community in addition to the more than a 20-year relationship between Fidelity and Bryant,” said Michelle Vetovis, a Fidelity senior vice president and Rhode Island regional leader. “Fidelity remains committed to this community and looks forward to the impact this will potentially make for future growth and opportunities for both institutions.”

She said Fidelity hires more current and former Bryant students for jobs in its Smithfield offices than from any other college. And Fidelity said it “remains committed to its presence in Rhode Island,” where it had about 4,200 employees at the end of this year’s first quarter.

The additional square footage that the campus expansion provides will allow the creation of an “Innovative and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem” initiative, which will takes ambitious projects from the idea stage to incubation and venture capital funding.

Bryant Board of Trustees chairman David Beirne said, “The expansion of our campus gives the entire University, and the College of Business specifically, needed innovation space for our students to ideate bold, future-forward visions to transform the world. Fidelity understands and appreciates the impact of Bryant graduates. We are grateful for their continued investment in our students and our future.”

Smithfield Town Manager Randy Rossi called the project a “win-win” for the town. “With Fidelity on track to add more jobs in the state, having Bryant’s bright talent pool right next door is a way to keep high-skilled college graduates right here in northern Rhode Island,” he said.

This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.