UPDATED, 9/24/25 | College of Charleston president Andrew Hsu said this week that the college intends to build a new dormitory at 106 Coming St., home of the former YWCA building, but if “extraordinary circumstances” arise the college could reevaluate the plan.After facing stiff opposition to the dorm, Hsu said the college will “reset” the timeline for the Coming Street Commons project on property that could hold the remains of people buried two centuries ago.
- (Editor’s Note: Click here for an updated version of this story)
“I take full responsibility and admit to the missteps in our earlier actions,” he told more than 100 Charleston residents and students gathered Monday evening in a cramped second-floor meeting room at St. Julian Divine Community Center. “For that, I express my sincere regret. Our intent is to respect the past, the place and the people.”
Part of the reset is more community engagement and a second round of ground-penetrating radar tests at the site, which is surrounded by a late 18th– to early 19th–century city-owned burial ground for poor and enslaved people. Historians estimate thousands of graves are in the old cemetery bounded by Coming, Calhoun and Vanderhorst streets. An earlier study, commissioned by the college, didn’t conclusively find human remains in the soil at the former headquarters of the YWCA of Greater Charleston.
“Without that data, we would not know to what extent there are human remains, and we would not know how to treat the ground most respectfully,” Hsu told the Charleston City Paper after the meeting.
Considering options
Removing remains to another cemetery and reinterring them at the site or selecting another location for the dorm are options that are under consideration, depending on the second radar test, he said.
On Tuesday, Hsu added that as soon as the site is ready for construction, “we are committed to doing that in the most respectful and responsible way possible, and for that we will welcome and rely on community input. We are not, however, doing this project blindly. If extraordinary circumstances present themselves that make construction on this site overly untenable, we could at that point reevaluate our plans.”
Hsu did not take questions from the audience. Instead of engaging with college officials in a town hall setting, residents and students were told to visit information tables in the room. They were encouraged to join a community engagement council to advise the college on cultural preservation and commemoration plans for the Potter’s Field. At one of the tables, YWCA’s staff members displayed the organization’s history and legacy. – Herb Frazier
- Previous coverage, 9/18: Proposed dorm on cemetery site sparks spirited community debate
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