Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science - Campus

Campus

The Virginia Key 18-acre (73,000 m2) campus includes classroom facilities, laboratories, a dock, and a student center. The center, called the F. G. Walton Smith Commons, holds a cafeteria and a bar that was rated as one of Miami's best secrets by the Miami New Times in 2008. The RSMAS campus features mangroves, sea grape trees, and other dune plants to protect its sand dunes and the campus from storm damage. In 2009, UM received a $15 million federal grant to help construct a new $43.8 million, 56,500 square feet (5,250 m2) Marine Technology and Life Sciences Seawater Research Building. The Virginia Key campus is part of a 65-acre (260,000 m2) marine research and education park that includes two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research laboratories and the Maritime and Science Technology Academy magnet school.

RSMAS also operates a 76-acre (310,000 m2) site on mainland Miami-Dade County that was formerly the United States Naval Observatory Secondary National Time Standard Facility, which already had buildings and a 20M antenna used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). The Rosenstiel School's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) and Richmond Satellite Operations Center (RSOC) have research facilities located on what is now named the Richmond Campus.