The Cyprus government will lease land in the centre of Paphos to the American University of Beirut (AUB Mediterraneo).
The land, next to the city hospital and the former carob mill, will be used for the construction of new buildings for the medical and polytechnic faculties of AUB Mediterraneo.
It is worth mentioning that the Cypriot branch of the university started operating in Paphos in 2024 with the support of the local authorities. Now the management of AUB Mediterraneo has decided to expand. The number of students is expected to rise to 2,000 once the project is completed.
For further development, the university needs to lease two plots of land:
- A 6,350 m2 plot opposite the Carob Mills complex, where a building for the Polytechnic Faculty will be constructed.
- A 4,181m2 plot next to the Paphos General Hospital, which will be used for the medical faculty building.
The Cyprus government has already agreed to transfer this land to the Paphos municipality, which will then be able to sublet it to the university. It should be noted that the land on which the Carob Mills complex was located was previously transferred to the municipality through the state-owned company SEDIPES, after which the municipality sublet it to the AUB. The agreement was signed on 8 April 2022, and two years later university buildings appeared on the site.
The American University of Beirut was founded in 1866 by the American missionary Daniel Bliss.
In 2022, the university signed an agreement with the Paphos municipality to open its first campus outside Lebanon in the city. The agreement provided the foreign university with a complex of buildings and a large plot of land in the Haroupomili neighbourhood, on which to build a major project. It took just over 30 days to approve the architectural plan and obtain all the necessary permits for the modernisation of the buildings and the construction of new ones. The cost of the project is estimated at €29 million.