2 iconic high-rise buildings on Winthrop University campus slated for demolition
Work is underway in the demolition of two iconic high-rise residence halls on the Winthrop University campus.
Crews will demolish Wofford and Richardson halls — 8-story buildings that face Cherry Road — likely by the beginning of 2024.
The decision to remove the buildings comes five years after engineers discovered problems with a concrete slab and issues with the roof on the eighth floor of Wofford Hall in 2017. At the time, the engineers suggested phasing out the use of the building within five years, said James Grigg, Winthrop’s associate vice-president of facilities management.
“We’ve got a structural issue and we don’t want to occupy it again,” Grigg said.
Wofford Hall was closed in July of 2021 after being used for quarantine and isolation in May of 2021. Richardson Hall was built in 1966 and Wofford Hall was built in 1968.
Another event that ignited concern about the safety of occupying the building happened on June 24, 2021 when a 12-story beachfront condo in Surfside, Fla. collapsed, which killed some of the residents, Grigg said.
Richardson and Wofford halls were built by different builders, but are similar in design. Richardson — the older of the two — closed in July of 2022. The residence halls housed 800 students.
Winthrop’s original plan was to phase out the use of Richardson, but the state of South Carolina has provided money to demolish both buildings, Grigg said.
Closing the residence halls comes at a time when student enrollment is down from the desired peak enrollment of 6,100 students.
Winthrop’s has not seen peak enrollment since the 2017-2018 academic year. Enrollment started to decline in 2018 and declined even more during the COVID pandemic.
The undergraduate student population during the 2022-2023 school year was 3,382 and has increased to 3,424, according to a message by Winthrop University President Edward Serna on the university’s website.
The university welcomed a class of 867 new freshmen for the fall semester, which is a 22 percent increase over 2022, Serna said, and a class of 268 new transfer students — a 17 percent increase.
In 2022, the university had enough rooms on campus to account for the 800 beds it was losing by closing Wofford and Richardson. With the increase enrollment in 2023, the university allowed some local students to live off campus, Grigg said.
The university also leased space in an off-campus apartment complex close to campus, he said.
The demolition also comes as the Winthrop Board of Trustees adopted the Campus Master Plan in June.
The plan identifies the university’s building needs and offers ways it can use current space, renovate and build new buildings and enhance the campus landscapes.
But the plan is not set in stone, Grigg said.
“The master plan is an idea document,” he said. “It gives things that we can look to do. It doesn’t say we have to do this in this order in this time frame. It gives you a range of ideas, like a menu and you can pick and choose, through study and through thought process. You can change what you are doing.”
The campus plan offers ideas of the type of structures that can fit within the footprint of Wofford and Richardson halls.
“We have re-envisioned, with Wofford and Richardson going away, what happens at that end of campus,” Grigg said. “It kind of creates somewhat of a clean slate along Cherry Road.”
Ideas for new buildings include a residence hall, an academic building or a new dining hall, he said, which is in the design phase.
The university also is a in discussion with the South Carolina Department of Transportation and the City of Rock Hill to partner with the realignment of Alumni Drive that intersects with Cherry Road, Grigg said.
“I’m looking forward to kind of a new vision for that end of campus,” Grigg said.
The plan also includes the demolition of Roddey Apartments, which was built in the late 1890s. The apartment building was initially designed for married students. But it is deteriorating and has accessibility concerns, according to the plan document that outlines the projects.
Redeveloping the site offers an opportunity to create a new southern gateway to Knowledge Park.
The plan suggests three new residence halls — one with traditional units for first-year students, a second apartment-style building for upperclassmen and another apartment-style hall on Columbia Avenue west of Alumni Drive.
Projects in the campus plan will take 8 to 15 years to complete.
This story was originally published October 25, 2023 at 9:16 AM.
