Building Arts college leaves McLeod Plantation
The American College of the Building Arts has dropped its controversial plan to use McLeod Plantation as a campus and, as part of an effort to repair the college’s finances, has sold the plantation it bought in 2004 on James Island back to the Historic Charleston Foundation.
“It would have and could have been a wonderful place to do what we do,” said American College of the Building Arts President Colby M. Broadwater. “However, my mission right now is to get the college on sound financial footing.”
In October the American Academy for Liberal Education, an accrediting agency, raised concerns about the college’s financial condition. The college is seeking pre-accreditation from the agency, which would make students eligible for federal grant and loan programs, and had hoped to win approval in 2008.
“They missed paying some people last summer,” said Jeff Martineau, vice president for accreditation at the American Academy for Liberal Education “They have to get that sort of thing squared away.”
As the college worked through the fall to shore up its finances, McLeod Plantation came into play. When the college sought and received a $734,500 loan from Charleston, the city required that the college temporarily sell McLeod Plantation back to the Historic Charleston Foundation in order to provide collateral.
The plan called for the college to put the $850,000 from the sale of McLeod Plantation in an escrow account, and lease the plantation until the college was able to re-purchase the property.
Instead, the college decided to keep the money from sale, then repaid the city loan and left the plantation in the hands of Historic Charleston.
Historic Charleston Foundation Executive Director Katharine Robinson said the foundation will probably spend several months considering what to do next with McLeod Plantation.
Friends of McLeod, a group that formed in protest after the plantation was rezoned by Charleston to allow a school to operate there, is still pursuing a lawsuit over the zoning, and seeking a hearing by the state Supreme Court.
Broadwater, who became president of ACBA in early 2008, said the college may also reduce the amount of space it leases from the Noisette development in North Charleston, and has been doing lots of fundraising in addition to cutting costs. The college also owns the historic Old City Jail in Charleston.
The college trains artisans in traditional building arts, such as metalwork and timber framing, within a curriculum that includes business, economics, languages and other traditional college courses. The college is licensed by South Carolina to offer a 2-year associate’s degree and a 4-year bachelor’s degree, and is preparing to graduate its first class, comprised of 7 students, this spring.
Pierre Manigault, chairman of the ACBA’s board of trustees, said they anticipated that the accrediting agency could have questions about the college’s finances, but he said Broadwater has done “tremendous things” to quickly improve the college’s condition since he was hired less than a year ago.
Manigault is also chairman of the board of Evening Post Publishing Co., parent company of Charleston.net and The Post and Courier.
Read more in tomorrow’s editions of The Post and Courier.
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