CBU plans North Campus, new athletics facilities
As Christian Brothers University moves toward a goal of having 3,000 full-time students, the school is embarking on an expansion plan to build more student housing, erect new athletics facilities and create more flexibility for existing campus buildings.
CBU submitted an application to the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board for the future planned development, which would turn 7.2 acres at the southwest corner of the Avery Avenue and South Hollywood Street intersection into a new campus area.
“This is a first step in a process to the eventual development of the area we’re calling the North Campus,” CBU President Jack Shannon said.
The school will begin a campus planning process after the new year, which will include sharpening the vision for North Campus.
Since the planning process is in its infancy, there’s no timeline for any work in the area. That timeline will also depend on financing.
“We can come up with a number of great ideas, but we would obviously need to secure the capital,” Shannon said.
But CBU will start work on a new indoor athletic facility in early 2021, he said.
It will be adjacent to the baseball field and provide indoor practice space for the baseball, softball, men’s and women’s soccer and rugby teams.
Shannon said it could also be used for intramural sports and fitness classes like yoga and Pilates.
The project is still in the planning phase, but he estimated it would cost in the six-figures.
Currently, the area slated to be the North Campus is a mix of vacant lots and single-family homes. The university had been acquiring properties in the area for years, some of which have been demolished and some of which are used as rental housing for faculty and staff, Shannon said.
Expansion into the area will give CBU the chance to add athletics facilities and recreational facilities but also to reconfigure student housing.
Expansion of the university would require additional housing, but Shannon said COVID-19 has also forced administrators to rethink how students are housed.
Instead of having two or three students per housing unit, in facilities that are 40 to 50 years old, CBU students now have their own rooms. Planning for new housing facilities gives the university the ability to look at how to “elevate the residential experience” and provide for the type of housing students expect these days, which is often different from what previous generations of students expected.
Developing North Campus will also involve engaging the city of Memphis and the developers of Liberty Park, the former fairgrounds, which will include a hotel and entertainment venue with bowling, laser tag and golf.
Shannon said the university wants to ensure any future development will fit into the area and be an asset not only to the school but to the city, as well as think about how best to showcase the existing university facilities.
“It will allow us to really begin defining Avery Avenue as another key access way into the campus,” he said.
Corinne Kennedy covers economic development, soccer and COVID-19’S impact on hospitals for the Commercial Appeal. She can be reached via email at Corinne.kennedy@commercialappeal.com or at 901-297-3245.