THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 30, 1996 TAG: 9605250200
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY SCOTT MCCASKEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 186 lines
THERE IS BROAD anticipation for the downtown Norfolk campus of Tidewater Community College, and the approximately $25 million project is right on course.
The campus is set for completion in the fall as scheduled, with classes beginning in January 1997.
Although scaffolding and construction materials now cloak much of the site, the shiny glass and brick exterior of the Science and Student Services building at College Place and Granby Street offers a glimmer of things to come.
``We'll be providing a school for the only city on the East Coast with more than 100,000 people that doesn't have a community college,'' said John Massey, director of the Norfolk campus. ``We're moving right ahead. Hopefully, we'll have a couple of months to see what light switches don't work and where all the rooms are.''
Work started in October 1994, and more than 100 workers have been toiling day - and often night - to complete the three-building facility along the Granby corridor between Freemason and Market streets.
When completed, the campus will house 49 classrooms, a library, computer and technical labs, instructional kitchens, meeting rooms and offices for faculty and administration. The site will be flanked by three parklike areas, landscaped with 5,000 trees, bushes and plants.
The centerpiece Martin Building, formerly Smith & Welton department store, and the Woolworth Building are being renovated. The Science and Student Services Building is being built from the ground up.
TCC students now in classes in rented downtown space say the campus will be a welcome site.
``I'm really looking forward to having a nice library to go to between classes,'' said Raymond Ledo, a 28-year-old student from Suffolk who is working on an associate degree in commercial art.
Linda Rushak, a 26-year-old Chesapeake resident who is a corporate accountant for Goodman Segar Hogan Hoffler commercial real estate, is taking business software courses at a classroom in the Monticello Arcade.
``I'll be enrolled in January in some form of accounting course,'' Rushak said. ``I work in the World Trade Center, so with classes permanently downtown it will be a lot more convenient. I can walk out of work to class.''
Enrollment is expected to be about 2,700 for the 1997 winter semester and 5,000 by 1998. Massey said the typical TCC student is about 30 years old and in the work force. About two-thirds of the campus' pupils will live in Norfolk, with most other students coming from surrounding cities. Current tuition is $52 per credit hour for in-state students, $161.35 for out-of-state students. Tuition costs could increase.
Downtown is responding to the anticipated influx of students.
``We've already seen an impact in the 100 block of Granby Street coming back,'' said Steve Cooper, assistant executive director for development operations for the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which acquired the campus sites for the city. ``There's investment interest in real estate up and down the corridor.''
Restaurants, art galleries and shops have sprung up along downtown Granby Street in recent months, with more eateries planned in the Selden Arcade. Open Wide, a restaurant and pub at 124 Granby St., has enjoyed growing success since it opened last summer.
``We're getting business from TCC's construction workers,'' owner Phil Haushalter said. ``Many of school's students are older and already in the job market. They will have the income to get something to eat and drink between work and class. This and MacArthur Center should help all the retailers down here.''
Cathy Coleman, executive director of the Downtown Norfolk Council, which promotes downtown growth, says that the school's major impact is generating interest in the area.
``The students aren't here in force yet, but there's a lot of anticipation,'' Coleman said. ``The school has taken those two landmark buildings that once anchored the retail street and will now anchor development in the surrounding community. With all the students down there for night classes, people won't be as wary to go downtown. It will become a walk-up community.''
Massey is calling the college an ``electronic campus,'' noting that there will be a computer on nearly every desk, networked to every part of the school, accessing most any information source on or outside the campus. Teleconferencing via satellite and program downloading from around the country will be a part of the curricula.
``We're trying to design a campus that takes advantage of today's technology,'' Massey said. ``Traditional education focuses on instruction - we're focusing on learning.''
Massey, 49, was a math instructor at TCC's Chesapeake campus in the early 1970s, a department head at the school in the '80s and assigned to direct the Norfolk campus in 1992.
In planning the college, Massey researched local, state and national occupational projections for the next 20 years. He looked at what kind of businesses the city is hoping to attract in the future. Massey decided that nursing, the culinary arts, computer technical training and business administration would be among the hot job prospects. He designed the school's programs accordingly.
``I identified the curricula and went by the state guidelines for classrooms,'' Massey explained. ``I then gave the architects a spread sheet of what we needed and received more design input from Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.''
The campus' two old buildings are being designed to preserve as much of the original architecture as possible, including restoring some of the molding. The new structure is being shaped to blend in with the rest of downtown's look. All three will have a large amount of window space, offering broad views of the Granby corridor and creating plenty of night lighting on the streets below.
``One of the best things about this project is that it allows us to take buildings with historically attractive architecture and put them back to good use,'' Cooper said.
The six-floor Martin Building at 300 Granby St. was constructed in 1913 and named after Alvah H. Martin, a clerk of the Norfolk County court and president of Merchants' and Planters' Bank. First a furniture store, the building in 1917 became Smith & Welton, which thrived for decades until closing in 1988. The Martin family donated the building to the city for the college.
The structure will have classrooms, computer labs, the computer network center, seminar rooms, administrative offices and a library. Much of the Martin Building's focus will be on continuous education programs, which offer current job training skills for employees of business and industry.
The library's book shelves stand where Smith & Welton's popular mezzanine/tea room once served generations of Norfolkians. Behind the library will be an outdoor reading garden, which will open to the entrance of the planned MacArthur Center. Between the Martin Building and the Downtown Athletic Club will be a college plaza for school events.
The Woolworth Building, a former Woolworth store at 354 Granby St., will house the culinary arts department, computer technician and electronics labs, and classrooms. Anticipating a growth in the restaurant and food service industry in Hampton Roads, the site will feature two large instructional commercial kitchens.
The new Science and Student Services Building at 100 College Place will have biology and nursing labs, computer labs, classrooms and student service offices for admissions, financial aid, career counseling and other programs. South of the building will be a college green, landscaped with trees and benches.
``Green areas will give the students places to relax, meet and just sort of hang out,'' Massey said.
The former Loew's movie theater, on Granby Street between the Martin and Woolworth buildings, also has been acquired as part of the campus project but will remain unrenovated for now because of budget constraints.
The start-up cost of the campus is approximately $25 million. The state gave an initial capital contribution of $2.2 million and is providing $1.3 million annually for 20 years, which is being used to back a $15.3 million bond issued by the Norfolk Community College Campus Corporation, a nonprofit group set up to pay for renovation and construction of the school.
About $6.2 million was contributed by the city for land acquisition and street and utility improvements. TCC's Education Foundation is raising some $3 million for equipment, furnishings and programs.
Cooper said that the bond issuance is a new approach for financing a community college. In the past, the state often has paid such sums outright. The new method, similar to a lease, avoids large cash layouts in times of budget crunches. The state will own the school at the end of 20 years. Other projects may be funded similarly in the future.
Architectural design for the campus is being done by a partnership between the Norfolk-based Williams Tazewell and Associates and UDA Architects of Pittsburgh, Pa. The Curtex corporation of Norfolk and the Turner company of Northern Virginia are the construction contractors.
While plans for the school's opening are on schedule, the next several years will entail an ongoing process of adjustment, with enrollment expected to max out at about 10,000 by the turn of the century.
``It will take us several years to get up to the size we'll run with,'' Massey said. ``Right now we're trying to get all the equipment and furnishings ready.''
Although busy preparing for the opening, Massey also is working on his doctorate in education from Virginia Tech, a requirement if he is to become provost of the college, essentially the school's principal. The person to hold the position will be chosen by TCC staff and faculty sometime within the next year. Massey has a bachelor's degree in math from Elon (N.C.) College and a master's in math from William and Mary.
Meanwhile, Massey says that construction is going like clockwork.
``It's kind of scary - there are no problems,'' Massey said. ``We're on schedule and on budget, but of course we could always use more money.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
TAKING SHAPE
Staff photo by JIM WALKER
The Woolworth Building will house culinary arts, computers and
electronics labs.
Staff photos by JIM WALKER
The Science and Student Services building is being built from the
ground up.
The centerpiece of TCC's downtown campus is the Martin Building,
right, the old Smith & Welton store. This building will house
continuous education programs.
John Massey, director of TCC's Norfolk campus, says the ``electronic
campus'' will have a computer on nearly every desk. by CNB