COLUMBIA – The University of South Carolina has taken the first step towards building a new $ 300 million health campus for its Faculty of Medicine.
A committee of the USC Board of Trustees on March 12 unanimously recommended that the school spend $ 4.2 million on a development plan for the proposed 16-acre site in the BullStreet district, which would house a new 130,000 medical school. square feet and a separate school of 162,000 square meters. construction of research and laboratory of square feet.
The proposal is considered the largest high-value project carried out at any public college in South Carolina, surpassing the $ 212 million and $ 106.5 million Douthit Hills housing project at the Darla Moore School of Business building USC.
The action still needs the approval of the full board, as well as the approval of the Higher Education Commission, the Joint Title Review Committee and the State Fiscal Responsibility Authority before the bidding process begins.
“This is a really significant day for the School of Medicine,” USC architect Derek Gruner told curators.
If the full board approves this first phase as expected, the developers would come back with design proposals for the structures to be built on donated land in the burgeoning BullStreet district in the former SC Department of Mental Health site.
The location is close to Prisma Health Richland Hospital, a university partner.
Gruner said he expects the board to be able to select the developer a year from now. In addition to the medical school and the research center, the plan would also identify space for the development of other possible health campus buildings and a future parking structure, he said.
“I talk to many students who want to come to medical school,” said board member Dr. Eddie Floyd, a retired cardiac surgeon from Florence who was one of the project’s proponents. “With the facilities we have now, we are the last in the state of South Carolina. If we do not improve, we will have problems.”
The move to BullStreet is also of particular importance because the USC School of Medicine contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs for its current location on Garners Ferry Road ends in 2030.
The Garners Ferry building, which dates from the 1930s, needs $ 75 million in improvements, according to estimates by university officials. And rent is expected to increase to between $ 7 million and $ 8 million a year under a new lease, above the $ 1 the school currently pays. The VA hospital also needs space for its own expanding operations, said Gruner.
In addition to medical school, USC is also moving forward on another major construction project: the $ 210 million Campus Village housing development.
The current capacity of residences on the school campus is 7,337 beds and an additional 584 beds in the 650-apartment building at Lincoln University. In comparison, the school enrolled 7,750 new freshmen and transferred students in the fall.
The council approved the addition of the Campus Village, which includes four new residential halls with a total of 1,808 beds, about 15 months ago, with the aim of being able to house its entire growing freshman population and a greater number of sophomores. on campus.
Then COVID-19 arrived in the state of Palmetto, forcing the university to close the campus and change classes online. The economic crisis induced by the pandemic called into question future enrollments and the need for new buildings, and last June the council suspended the project.
But enrollments for next fall have recovered, a 21 percent increase for the school’s main campus, according to USC President Bob Caslen. Thus, the project was restarted with the demolition of the Cliff Apartments.
“He has fallen with remarkable speed in the past few weeks,” said Gruner.
When students leave in May, construction should begin in earnest.
“We are looking forward to seeing the cranes on the Columbia horizon again,” he said.
