Clarkson has ambitious schedule for downtown
POTSDAM — Renovations to Clarkson University's downtown campus will be complete by 2013, according to its president, who for the first time has revealed his ambitious timeline.
Three of the university's 11 buildings downtown are vacant and three others — the biggest the university owns there — are only partially in use. Plans outlining necessary renovations and construction were adopted two years ago. Costs will be in the tens of millions of dollars, the president said. A timeline had not been released in the university's master plan.
"I would be disappointed if within three years we can't accomplish 90 percent of what we've talked about," Clarkson President Anthony G. Collins said. "It's not just a question of renovating them; it's a matter of utilizing them in ways that can provide economic development and job growth."
According to the plan, Peyton Hall should be under construction this summer, but the project is still in the design phase. Once the work is completed, the building will be used as a small-business incubator.
Also on the south side of Main Street, construction is under way on the liberal-studies building, which will house the university's physician assistant program when it opens in January 2012. Damon Hall remains empty, as it has been for two decades. Officials from the university and the St. Lawrence County Arts Council say they want to turn it into a community art center.
Old Main is partially in use as storage space, and it houses a joint venture between the university and the Beacon Institute on water quality monitoring. Clarkson Hall houses the university's doctor of physical therapy program; eventually more health studies programs will be added and housed there, Mr. Collins said.
Lewis House is entirely rented out to small businesses.
The university is awaiting an announcement about a funding source to renovate more of Old Main to expand on the partnership with the Beacon Institute.
"We are optimistic that we may be able to announce funding within a reasonably short time. It's out of our hands," Mr. Collins said. "That would put all of the buildings on the south side of Main Street back into operation."
Of the five buildings on the north side, three are in use. The university's business, human resources and financial aid offices, as well as classrooms for the St. Lawrence County Arts Council, are in Old Snell, and Congdon will be brought online again as housing for graduate students and newly hired professors. Students moved out of the building in 2006.
Many of the vacant buildings have been empty for years and are in need of roof work and other renovations.
"As with all older buildings, we have to look to remove hazardous material, we have to get them up to local building codes, we have to save energy," Mr. Collins said. "The cost is very, very significant."
There is not yet a good estimate of how much all of the work will cost, but none of the work is funded directly through student tuition or fees, according to the president.
"We've always had the intention to put them back into use," Mr. Collins said. "The overarching theme of this is that a vibrant village community is critical to the region and our own success."
The downtown campus was abandoned gradually as the university built and moved to the hill campus, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. Before the adoption of the master plan for the downtown campus, the university had hoped to sell the buildings or rent them out to small businesses piecemeal.
