A new campus for USFSM opened on August 28, 2006. The campus was built on the eastern portion of Dunham-Crosley-Horton property (Seagate), a historic home that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. After a campaign by Friends of Seagate for public acquisition this property had been brought into public ownership in 1991 by the state for the use of the sixteen bay front acres by Manatee County as a historical site and the remainder for research use by the environmental studies department of New College. Potential development purposes were remote at the time.