THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040437
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL AND PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
City Council members, downtown business folk, legislators and education officials will gather at noon at Granby Street and College Place to watch the ground breaking for the first Norfolk branch of Tidewater Community College.
City and TCC officials say Norfolk residents need a college within the city in addition to Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University. Many Norfolk students now travel to Virginia Beach to take community college classes. ``It's the initiation of a new resource that will literally serve thousands of local people who really didn't have access to it before,'' Councilman Mason C. Andrews said.
TCC's annual tuition is $1,359 - less than half the cost that in-state undergraduates pay at Norfolk State or Old Dominion.
As the students learn, they could also draw new shops and businesses to Granby and side streets, officials hope. The campus will open in 1996. TCC officials predict it will eventually enroll 10,000 students.
The city has been struggling for decades to revive Granby, once the region's premier shopping street. If revived in some fashion, it would generate tax money, improve the city's image and give Hampton Roads a stronger center, officials say.
For years, Norfolk State University posed the major stumbling block to the campus. NSU administrators publicly questioned the need for the campus in a city with two universities and privately worried whether a TCC-Norfolk would siphon off their enrollment. But about two years ago, NSU President Harrison B. Wilson said he would support creation of the campus.
TCC has about 17,000 students at its three other campuses.
Education officials, downtown business people, legislators and city officials have all labored to put a community college in Norfolk, said Mayor Paul D. Fraim. It even involved passing state legislation removing a prohibition on Norfolk having such an institution.
Said Fraim, ``It really has been a magnificent effort by lots and lots of people.'' by CNB