Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, could enter into a memorandum of understanding this week with a developer to lease the parcel next to the campus at the southeast corner of 59th Avenue and Greenway Road in Glendale, says David Howell, VP of marketing and communications for Thunderbird.

The development could include a hotel, office space, a conference center and student housing, he says. The pace of development on the parcel would be up to the developer, but Howell says he would like to see a ground breaking later this year. Thunderbird owns about 160 acres at the intersection.

The 130-room hotel that Thunderbird currently has on its campus is often filled to capacity during periods when large numbers of business executives are on campus attending classes. Thunderbird offers a masters degree in international management and a business executive education program, which require intensive multi-day educational experiences. Some of the seminars last more than 10 days. Nearly 5,000 executives attend seminars there during the year.

The new development would also have some element for student housing, Howell says. Thunderbirds has aging dorms that do not meet the needs of today's student, he says, noting that the school was established in 1946.

Of the 1,500 full-time graduate students on the Thunderbird campus, about half of them are from outside the United States. In any class, more than 80 countries are represented.

Leasing the land rather than developing the parcel itself allows Thunderbird to focus its resources and attention on its core business of education, Howell says.

Thunderbird is considered to one of the premier schools of international management in the world. U.S. News & World Report has ranked it as the top school in the world for international management for the past five years.