Averett University Under Construction

July 26, 2010

By Catherine Amos
Register & Bee staff writer
Published: July 25, 2010

Construction crews at Averett University have demolished an old maintenance and security building in the center of its grounds - not to rebuild, but instead to add open, green space and help reinvent its campus.

Danville City Council recently approved a request from Averett to rezone a nearby vacant house the school already owned for its security and maintenance operations, leading to the destruction of the former building. But some of the small, private college's residential neighbors have expressed concern to City Council that the school is expanding too much into the surrounding neighborhood.

Averett sits on about 18 acres off West Main Street, pocketed adjacent to the Forest Hills neighborhood since about 1900. The last building built on campus was the Student Center in 2004-05, and rather than expanding further, Executive Vice President Charles Harris said the school aims to stay small.

"As a university," Harris said in a recent interview, "we're not really in an expansionist mode."

Harris said he hoped tearing down the old maintenance building for an open lawn would create a more unified, traditional campus feel and "reinvent" the school's existing resources.

Redefining the campus
To help refine the campus further, Averett is also in the process of wrapping up construction on a student center for career and support services in the former cafeteria - as well as converting a neighboring house on West Main Street into a campus bookstore. Both projects will be complete by the end of August.

"What we've spent most of our time doing in recent years," Harris said, "in terms of renovating our existing structures and with the idea that we would remain competitive in the very competitive college market - what you'll see now is some of the work we're doing to reinvent what has already been here as opposed to what others may think our motives are."

City Council approved the school's request to convert a single-family home at 204 Woodland Ave. into offices by a 5-3 vote earlier this month. The planning commission had recommended approval of the proposal, after sending letters to 18 neighbors. They received 11 responses, six of which opposed the change.

Danville resident Frankie Braswell told City Council before its vote July 6 that Averett's conversion of homes in the neighborhood was lowering property values.

"They (Averett) buy the houses, rent them to a lot of students who throw loud parties on the weekends, and tear up the rental houses because they just do not care, and this affects the rest of us," Braswell said.

Averett already owned the recently rezoned, vacant house for about two years. Harris said moving offices into it "would have minimal impact on the community as a whole."
Robert Lambeth, president of the Council of Independent Colleges in Virginia, of which Averett is a member, said the Averett has garnered long-term loyalty because of the work it does in the community and its strong, positive leadership.

A bright future
"I think the future for Averett is bright," Lambeth said. "It has deep roots in the community. There's a lot of community support for Averett and in some ways, it becomes somewhat almost like a de facto public institution because of the long-term loyalty."

The school will open in the fall with a little more than 830 students, Harris said, and their strategic plans aim to increase undergraduate enrollment to about 1,000 in the next five years. The school has bed space for about 540 students - but Harris said they are not at full occupancy and do not plan on adding more any time soon.

"We don't see more than 1,000 traditional students enrolled," Harris said. "There's not some great desire on our part to annex the next anything ... Every footprint we've looked at is the same 18-acre footprint."