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Restoration institute an innovation cornerstone
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Despite Gov. Mark Sanford’s highly publicized reservations about expanding the state’s university infrastructure, the S.C. Budget and Control office on Jan. 30 gave its final approval to Clemson University’s request for $10.3 million in infrastructure bond funding to support the creation of the university’s restoration institute in North Charleston.
“We are very grateful for the support of the Budget and Control Board,” said John Kelly, vice president for public service and agriculture at Clemson, who is leading efforts to establish the Institute. “The board’s support is a vote of confidence in Clemson’s ability to generate research that will create high-tech jobs in South Carolina.”
But if the 4-1 vote, on which Sanford was again the lone dissenter, was a vote of confidence for the university, it was also something of a political loss for the governor.
Joel Sawyer, a spokesman for the governor, said Sanford simply hadn’t seen or heard of any evidence to prompt him to change his position.
“The governor has always believed that it just doesn’t make sense to make this kind of commitment of public money when we are unable to quantify a rate of return in terms of private investment,” Sawyer said.
“At the same time, Gov. Sanford has gone on record as believing that without a complete review of our higher education system and higher education mission, it just doesn’t make sense to enlarge it.”
But if Sanford still has his reservations about a university proposal the state is now committed to fund, others described the CURI as a cornerstone of a future knowledge economy by politicians, economic developers and tech promoters alike.
“The Restoration Institute is part of our whole effort to create high-paying, knowledge-based industry in the state,” S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell said. “In economic development, in setting forth an agenda for an innovation economy, you can’t be all things to all people. You have to pick and choose what you will pursue based on your strengths.
“No city in the country has played as much of a role in the historic preservation movement, an important component of the institute, than Charleston has.”
Clemson’s plan to create the institute took a major step forward in December, when the State Budget and Control Board first agreed to provide the university with $10.3 million in seed money for the campus, which will be built on 82 acres at the former Charleston Naval Base.
But the debate over the funding was contentious and one member of the board, Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom, said his vote in favor of the plan was contingent on the university’s answering additional questions about its plans to oversee conservation of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.
That set the stage for the second vote by the board, a vote that some political observers said might give Sanford, who was also the lone dissenter in the first 4-1 decision, the upper hand in blocking or at least slowing the plan until some sign of private funding manifested itself.
The reason was that in addition to Eckstrom’s wavering vote, new state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, a fiscal conservative, replaced Grady Patterson on the board.
Despite uncertainty leading up to the Budget and Control Board meeting, Clemson has been moving ahead with its plan. In late January, Kelly hired Gene Eidson, a nationally recognized restoration ecologist, to lead environmental efforts at the institute.
Eidson, a founder of the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy in Augusta, Ga., is known for his considerable expertise in the reclamation of degraded environmental sites, such as brown fields and landscapes in need of restoration.
At the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy, Eidson was instrumental in raising more than $6.5 million through public and private partnerships to support research, education and outreach programs.
“His collaborative work is an outstanding example of how research, education, economic development and environmental restoration can work together in harmony with nature and with communities,” Kelly said.
Eidson, who will remain president at the academy while working with Clemson, described his dual role as a relationship that “opens wonderful new possibilities.”
John Warner, a leader in South Carolina’s efforts to create an innovation economy, said Clemson’s plan is about much more than the restoration of the H.L. Hunley.
“Basically, you’re taking Charleston and the greater Charleston region and turning it into something that hasn’t existed before: a living laboratory of materials and environmental science,” Warner said.
“What we are doing is standing at is the threshold of a huge market given that the great cities of the world are getting older and that the materials we’ve relied on are getting older and more challenged.”
David Ginn, president of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, sees the creation of the restoration institute as the state’s putting a stake in the ground in a unique corner of the innovation economy.
“I know people express concern about private funding flowing into this project, but to me, from an economic development perspective, I don’t see how this cannot be a positive,” he said.
“I believe that the biggest initial contribution the Restoration Institute will make to our region is that it will help people get their hands around the concept of Charleston as an epicenter of materials sciences, and in the long run that’s going to help us attract those kinds of companies here.”
The bottom line, Harrell said, is that “South Carolina, like the rest of the country, is moving toward a knowledge-based economy. We are either going to help it get there or watch the rest of the country pass us by.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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