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C of C’s $10 million Beatty Center nears completion
By Rachel Pleasant
Staff Writer
The College of Charleston’s Beatty Center awaits its finishing touches. The new 48,000-square-foot building at 5 Liberty Street will be dedicated June 30.
After the celebrations are done, Robert Pitts, dean of the School of Business and Economics, says the building will go a long way in unifying the business program.
“It’s going to consolidate a lot more of what we do,” Pitts says, adding that classes are currently scattered throughout the
campus.
The Beatty Center, named in recognition of Guy Beatty, a businessman and longtime supporter of the business school who gave $2 million toward the building, abuts the Tate Center for Entrepreneurship.
Designed to reflect Charleston’s distinct architecture, the $10 million building is reminiscent of a single house.
“The atrium is the garden, the balconies would be your porches and the classrooms are the house part,” says architect Eric Aichele of Charleston’s LS3P Associates, who added that New Jersey’s Hillier Architects collaborated on the project. “The exterior, with its solid stone façade, picks up on the rhythm of the streetscape.”
The building includes nearly 50 offices, a 175-seat auditorium, four regular classrooms, four tiered classrooms, and several seminar and boardrooms.
Students will also use the Automated Trading Desk simulated trading center. Livestock market information will appear on televisions, and students will buy and sell from computer stations.
The Beatty Center replaced a 1940s building “of dubious history,” Pitts says.
The building, Aichele says, was once used for retail and as a theater. Once demolished, Aichele and the construction team, including Charleston’s Newton Builders, began the arduous task of building a new structure while surrounded by existing buildings.
“It was a tight squeeze to get everything in there,” Aichele says. “We had the backs of a series of stores on King Street on one side. The Tate Center was on the other side, and it was being used for classes the whole time. There’s a parking lot at the back. It was a difficult challenge keeping the college and the shop owners happy.”
Though crews had to balance making progress while creating as little disruption to the area as possible, the project also provided them with an interesting discovery.
“During the foundation work, they came across an unexploded artillery shell that had to be very carefully removed,” Aichele says.
The Beatty Center will be used by the college’s approximately 1,300 business students, Pitts says. While the building is a significant improvement, the business school “has already outgrown” its new facility.
About a dozen offices are being used in the nearby JC Long Building, Pitts says.
As for future expansion, Pitts says the parking lot at the building’s rear may be an answer.
The Beatty Center is among a number of college projects, either recently completed, ongoing or being planned, that total $100 million. These projects will increase the school’s square footage by 75%, says Monica Scott, vice president of facilities planning.
The Beatty Center was originally scheduled to open in November. Scott could not provide a specific explanation for the delay but said such delays are typical with new construction.
Rachel Pleasant covers education issues for the Business Journal. She can be reached at rpleasant@crbj.com.
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