Chinese universities are important but undertheorized players in the production of urban built environments. Most work focuses on purpose-built university towns, neglecting the redevelopment of underutilized downtown campuses. Therefore, this article considers how two publicly funded universities in Nanjing attempted to establish ‘innovation complexes’ in their older, poorly maintained urban campuses. These two real estate developments were legitimized by promises of technological innovation that would spearhead China’s transition to an innovation-driven economy. They accommodated both universities’ evolving spatial needs and revived underutilized spaces for more ‘productive’ purposes. Both universities worked with local government and external actors to develop their innovation complexes. However, their different academic strengths, prior experience with knowledge valorization and place histories affected the resulting partnerships and led to divergent outcomes. This comparison underscores the breadth of university real estate practices, evolving town–gown relationships, and the politics of urban regeneration, as China seeks to replace economic growth driven by land development with an innovation-driven economy.