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College of Charleston under construction
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
The College of Charleston is pumping millions of dollars into its aging infrastructure as the school undergoes its largest construction project since it went public in 1970.
“It’s been interesting to see the growth and improvement. I think the emphasis on bringing these new facilities online has just been tremendous. Of course, it’s always a challenge when you’re constructing in an old historic district with very little land,” said Monica Scott, the college’s vice president for facilities planning.
The projects put a new twist on the nostalgic downtown campus as administrators aim to offer big-school amenities while retaining its cozy small-college touch.
The largest piece of the construction plans, the so-called George Street project, was wrapped up this summer just in time for the school year that began late last month.
In the place of an old multistory garage and concrete parking lot, the new three-building complex along George and Liberty streets includes retail shops, a cafeteria, a new parking garage, upperclassmen apartments and suite-style residence halls for freshmen.
Developer Anthony McAlister designed the project on behalf of the college, and retains control of the retail space and parking garage. McAlister’s first major tenant, a CVS drugstore, opened for business Aug. 26. The school owns the land, apartments and Liberty Street building, Scott said.
About 200 upperclassmen will call the fourth-floor apartments located above the retail shops home. The two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments come with a kitchen, a single-occupancy bedroom, living rooms and a washing machine and dryer.
“We realize, as most schools do, if you want to keep your students on campus past the freshman year you have to offer that style of living,” Scott said. “The goal is to increase on-campus housing to about 40 percent of the undergraduate enrollment. There’s a direct correlation between student performance and living on campus.”
The building on Liberty Street includes the school’s cafeteria on the ground floor and 440 beds in suite-style residence halls for freshmen upstairs. The college has never required any of its students to stay on campus, though Scott said about 95% of them do.
The suites have two bedrooms, a shared bath and small study area, and house four students each.
The 600-car privately operated parking garage is situated between the two buildings.
Scott said the college began looking at its construction needs several years back under the leadership of then-President Leo Higdon. Much of the previous infrastructure was built in 1970 when the school was folded into the public system and began an aggressive campaign to increase its 500 student population.
By 1975, the student population had grown to 5,000. It was just over 9,000 in 1996 and peaked at 10,044 in 2002, but the school did not undergo any major construction improvements during that three-decade period, Scott said. The college currently caps its student population at about 10,000.
As school officials prepared for the facelift, they outlined a series of planning principles, which included creating a small-college feel and a student-centered campus.
In addition to the George Street development, The Beatty School of Business on Liberty Street opened in the last few years, and construction was recently completed of the School of Education on the corner of Wentworth and St. Philip streets. A major renovation of the Stern Student Center was also recently finished. Those three projects cost a combined $22 million.
The Cato Center for the Arts on the corner of Calhoun and St. Philip streets is still under construction, as is the new basketball arena going up on Meeting Street. Both are scheduled to be completed next summer. The college will soon break ground on a new science center on the corner of Calhoun and Coming streets, which is pegged for completion in the fall of 2009. The combined cost of these three projects is $129 million, Scott said
The college has several additional projects still in the design phase, she said. There are plans to build a new facility at the Grice Marine Lab on James Island where the marine biology program is located.
The additional facility will house labs, office space and residence halls for graduate students.
The other project in the works is development of the 862-acre Dixie Plantation in rural West Ashley that was gifted to the school in 1995.
“We’d like to add some very small cabin-like residence halls and have students actually live out there while they’re doing their full-time studying,” Scott said. “It’s really a beautiful piece of property.”
Additionally, the school plans to renovate the exteriors of Randolph Hall, Porter’s Lodge and Towell Library, buildings that date to the 1800s and were the college’s first classroom buildings. They now largely house administrative staff, Scott said.
“It’s very important to be good stewards of these historic properties, so that’s an important one for us,” she said.
Each of the construction projects were funded by a variety of sources, Scott said, including institutional bonds, state capital improvement bonds, revenue bonds and private donations.
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at mparker@charlestonbusiness.com.
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