(Editor’s Note: This is an updated version of a story published earlier this week online.)
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.
“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 are options that are under consideration, depending on the second radar test, he said. The college has tentative plans this fall to demolish the building and remove an asphalt parking lot, a college spokesman said. But state and city approvals are needed.
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.
Last week, the City Paper reported that the college paid $28.7 million for slightly more than an acre for the YWCA land near the college’s downtown campus with plans to build a multi-level residency hall for several hundred students to meet the college’s growing need for affordable on-campus housing.
The property’s previous owner, McAlister Development Group, bought the land from the YWCA with plans to build student housing on it and lease the building to the college, said Paul Patrick, the college’s chief of staff. But the college decided it would be best to own the property and build housing for students who are struggling to find affordable off-campus options.
Before the college acquired the property earlier this year, it knew the centuries-old burial ground surrounds the site, he said.
Given those factors, the community’s negative response was not surprising.
“We always knew it was going to be difficult, especially a project of this size,” Patrick told the City Paper recently. “We always knew the site had its challenges that we had to work through.”
Nevertheless, the college proceeded with confidence, believing it “would be the best stewards of this site,” said Mark Berry, the college’s assistant chief of staff. “If the site was going to be developed, we wanted to be the ones to do it the right way.”
Community response
The community’s response against the project has led to the formation of Protect and Respect the Bodies, a coalition of individuals, organization and faith groups that opposes a dorm on the 18th century “Strangers and Negroes Burying Ground.” The coalition is planning to meet at 5 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Charleston County Public Library on Calhoun Street.
The coalition has spawned a growing opposition on campus and a new T-shirt printed with the Protect and Respect the Bodies slogan, said Zoe Barber of Columbia, a junior majoring in historic preservation and community planning.
“This is the slogan, and this is what we are fighting for,” said Barber, who said she designed the T-shirt so other students could be made aware of the issue. It is easier to advocate for a cause if it has a catchy slogan, she said.
Moncks Corner resident Walter Brown said he attended the meeting because he wants the college to respect the people who are buried at the site. “The people who are buried there represent us,” he said.
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