Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, was a day of celebration for officials with Columbia State Community College and many community leaders as they held a “pounding ceremony” to symbolize the realization of CSCC’s longtime dream of a site for a new and modern college campus.
CSCC President Dr. Janet Smith went back to her rural roots with the pounding ceremony, saying she had done a little fencing in her life and the post pounded into the ground Friday represented the corner post of the college’s future at the 36-acre site on Liberty Pike just east of Carothers Parkway.
“We weren’t dreaming of just a building. We were dreaming of a campus,” Smith told the hundreds of people who gathered at the Franklin Marriott and Cool Springs Conference Center before the on-site visit. She and others repeatedly thanked 61st District state Rep. Charles Sargent for working tirelessly to secure the funding to purchase the campus site.
Kiser-Vogrin Design helped Smith and her staff dream about what a future campus could look like and that is reflected below. No funding has been dedicated for the actual design or construction of the campus, which could start with three classroom buildings as well as an administrative office building. The price tag is estimated at $36 million, with a 10 percent match of locally raised money required to qualify for the construction funding.