ROCKINGHAM — Another hurdle was cleared in the path to a downtown satellite campus for Richmond Community College on Tuesday when the city council approved a memorandum of agreement with the college.
According to the agreement, the city will purchase the property — which includes the R.W. Goodman building and parking lot, the Long building and the McNair parking lot — for the college’s School of Business and Information Technology.
Dr. Dale McInnis, college president, said the campus will be “replacing one landmark with another landmark.”
The city has been invited to submit two grants — to the Cole and Richmond Community foundations — for a total of $355,000 to help with the acquisition. As a local match, the city will purchase the McNair lot for $125,000. The grant applications were due June 1.
An exterior design concept has already been agreed upon, and RCC is responsible for the interior.
McInnis said there were several faculty members who said they’d like to be in the room while interior plans were being discussed.
The estimated cost, as of April 22, was $12,022,913 for a 44,000 square foot building.
The city will oversee the construction and the college — which is responsible for fundraising — will purchase the building for $1 million. The city will also waive inspection fees, estimated at $36,000.
“We’re blessed to be able to grow at a time when other colleges are not,” McInnis told the council. He said “space is a dire need,” and that the new campus would position RCC to be in a leadership role throughout the entire region.
Mayor Pro-tem John Hutchinson said he is “very excited” about the partnership between the RCC and the city.
“This is a very big deal,” he told the Daily Journal earlier Tuesday. “It is an innovative and exciting project for the college and city, both. It provides RCC with the classroom space it needs, while also redeveloping a significant portion of downtown Rockingham.”
Hutchinson, who was unable to attend the council meeting, wouldn’t have been able to vote on the agreement since he is a member of both the city board and the Richmond Community College Board of Trustees, which approved the agreement last week.
“We also believe it will increase…downtown foot traffic and provide more opportunity for small businesses to develop and grow — and small, local businesses are important to our economic development,” he added.
After the unanimous vote, the other council members praised the project, also expressing their excitement, with Anne Edwards remarking at how quickly plans have come together.
Councilman Gene Willard said the new campus was “one of the best things in downtown Rockingham since the ’60s.”
Hutchinson said the project is the result of a vision shared by many community leaders, taking a year of cooperation to get to the point it is now.
“And as the story unfolds, it will become obvious that there are many, many people who deserve credit got making this happen,” he said. “We do our best work in Richmond County when many different groups come together with a common goal. It’s going to be a beautiful, state-of-the-art learning center. It’s going to be an asset to the college, county and city, all three.”
Mayor Steve Morris, reflecting what other council members said, called the campus a “catalyst for learning new job skills in the 21st century” and a “welcome addition to the revitalization efforts of downtown.”
McInnis also thanked the county government for stepping up to support the project.
He and City Manager Monty Crump signed the agreement after the meeting.
The council also voted to:
• approve the adoption of budget amendments and the budget;
• set a public hearing at the July 12 meeting for an amendment to the city’s unified development ordinance, changing the age restrictions for manufactured homes permitted in the city’s jurisdiction to those constructed after July 1, 1976;
• approve an audit contract with Anderson Smith & Wike, PLLC; and
• approve the donation of a Ford Crown Victoria, formerly used by the Rockingham Fire Department, to the Richmond County Rescue Squad.
Reach William R. Toler at 910-817-2675 and follow him on Twitter @William_r_toler.
