MUSC breaks ground for new CHP complex
More than 300 people attended the groundbreaking ceremony, Oct. 16, for MUSC’s new College of Health Professions complex. University officials say that the 102,500 square-foot facility will be one of the larger allied-health education centers in the Southeast when it is completed in 2005.
MUSC
President Dr. Ray Greenberg, far left, and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley,
far right, bookend a group of MUSC officials and friends as they break
ground at the new CHP facility.
The university is building the new complex to ease overcrowding in its College of Health Professions, which educates physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, cytologists, cardiovascular perfusionists, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, and other health administration professionals.
Since the college’s founding in 1966, demand for allied-health services has increased dramatically, driving enrollment upward at a rate exceeding that of any other college on the university’s campus. Growth of the school’s physical facilities, however, has not kept pace.
“Our enrollment has grown from 162 students in 1967 to 613 today,” said Danielle Ripich, Ph.D., the college’s dean. “We’re the largest college on campus, yet our students are allotted just 8 percent of the university’s overall instruction space.”
Ripich said that overcrowding had forced the school to place students in seven different locations, both on and off campus.
“We have long felt that this configuration did not provide an ideal environment for learning, but, until now, there was little we could do to boost capacity or consolidate our campus,” said Ripich.
When the complex is complete, it will consist of three main buildings: the 35,500-square-foot High School of Charleston, a new 38,500-square-foot “sister” building to be built next door, and the college’s original facility on Bee Street, which will be used for wet labs, certain clinical laboratory programs, and research project space. The two buildings on Rutledge Avenue will be joined by a walkway and flanked on the rear by a 600- to 700-space parking garage, which will house 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.
Overall, the new complex will boost the college’s total square footage by more than 45 percent, enabling the college to increase enrollment capacity and acquire fixed, state-of-the-art technologies. It also will allow the college to add new areas of study as health care needs evolve in the years to come.
University President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., said the new complex would place the Medical University in a stronger position to meet South Carolina’s changing health care needs.
“As South Carolina’s population continues to grow and age, it will face an unprecedented demand for health care professionals, such as physical therapists, occupational therapists and physician assistants,” said Greenberg. “That is why it is so crucial for us to build a state-of-the-art facility with the capacity and the environment needed to educate the next generation of providers.”
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. praised the university’s decision to incorporate the former High School of Charleston into the complex’s design, saying it would save a building that had come to mean a great deal to many city residents.
“We are extremely pleased to see the Medical University go to such extraordinary lengths to restore this building, which holds such dear memories for so many people,” said Riley. “I believe this structure will stand as a tangible symbol of the spirit of partnership that has existed between the university and the City of Charleston for so many years.”
The High School of Charleston was built on Rutledge Avenue in 1922 and closed in 1982. It was briefly reopened as a middle school but closed for good in 1985 and was purchased by the Medical University. During the next 18 years, fire and the natural elements nearly destroyed the building, robbing it of nearly all structural integrity.
At one point, the Medical University planned to build a parking garage in the building’s place, saving only the structure’s facade. Last April, however, the university’s board of trustees voted to restore the building as part of the new College of Health Professions complex. The complex’s design has received preliminary approval by the Board of Architectural Review (BAR), and final BAR hearings are expected to take place in November.
Restoring the school building is expected to add an extra $1.6 million to the project’s cost, bringing its overall cost to an estimated $33.2 million. The project will be financed with existing funds, private philanthropy and fees generated through the facility’s parking garage and retail space, said Ripich.
The groundbreaking was attended by many alumni of the High School of Charleston, several of whom expressed appreciation for the extra expense and effort the university is investing in the restoration of their old school building.
“We had resigned ourselves to the fact that the building was going to
be entirely demolished and that only the alcove would be saved,” said Louis
Ostendorff, a member of Charleston High’s Class of 1943, which is celebrating
its 60th reunion this weekend. “This was a very, very welcome surprise.”
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