FLORENCE , S.C. — When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress — and that was a good thing.
The two new buildings — a business and education building and a workshop for engineering students — were finished and ready to welcome students into new classrooms. A construction crew Wednesday works on a section of sidewalk on the campus of Francis Marion University in Florence. The journey to the new buildings, though, was still undergoing the finishing touches as were the new entrance signage to the campus off Francis Marion Road.
Those projects are in addition to the renovations of the campus student center last winter and future construction plans for the campus, said President Fred Carter. “If you stand in front of the business and education school and look straight through the windows you can see the nursing school,” Carter said of the two buildings that complement each other in design and placement. “Architects and builders did a fine job not only with the design of the building for the layout as well.
” The new building offers education offices and class space on one side and business offices and class space on the other, a centrally placed auditorium and a large lobby with an equally large water feature. The lobby opens to both the front and back of the building. A construction crew Wednesday stands by as another crew member, not pictured, works to clean out the fountain ahead of students attending class in the building Tuesday.
The back of the building opens up onto a grassy expanse with a full view of one of the university’s larger ponds where Wednesday an ibis fished unbothered by the construction finishing touches taking place around it. Inside the building workers hustled to get the fountain in shape and ready to, well, fountain on Friday. “It seems to me that the utility of something like that fountain allows the lobby to be used for receptions as well as student study areas and the like,” Carter said “It’s a good deal for us.
Always something calming about running water.” The lobby of Francis Marion University’s new business and education building is wide open with a skylight for illumination. FMU’s building projects of late have included a water feature either inside, or outside — or in the case of one building inside and outside.
A theme that has carried over to downtown Florence with several fountains and a splash pad. Carter said the credit for the university landing the new building goes to several current and former legislators. The students will also arrive to a new engineering projects building that will allow students a climate-controlled area to construct mock-ups of their projects.
“I’d be remiss in talking about that building if I didn’t mention all the hard work (the late) Sen. Hugh Leatherman put in to getting that building for us and (Rep.) Phillip Lowe,” Carter said.
“Phillip in the House side and Hugh on the Senate side worked hard to allow us to acquire it.” A networking team Wednesday pulls cable as part of the finishing touches of Francis Marion University’s new business and education building. Like so many of the university’s previous projects the buildings have come debt free, something that affords FMU the freedom to fulfill its educational and community missions.
“It give us a lot of flexibility in providing more money for scholarships to students and not using it for debt service,” Carter said. Construction completion meant that some long-overdue maintenance could take place around the campus — roads, sidewalks and parking lots. Francis Marion University’s new business and education building features a first-floor auditorium that was getting its final touches Wednesday morning.
“Moving through COVID where a lot didn’t get done, the campus is always beautiful with trees and our fine horticultural crews and grounds crews and the like, but the roads needed paving, the parking lots needed paving,” Carter said. “We knew that, but we didn’t want to do those things until we got the renovations done and new buildings built. You never want to pave a road and build a building right next to it.
” The university is also taking and replacing large sections of sidewalks that either crumbled or suffered upheaval from tree roots — or both. That work will offer students and staff alike a fresh and unobstructed walk between classes. An old section of sidewalk is sandwiched between two new sections of sidewalk put down as part of renovations to Francis Marion University’s campus.
With those projects in the rearview mirror, Carter said, the university can look forward to tackling its next series of projects. “The next three projects involving the project, we’ll go downtown, and we’ll begin reconstructing the Circle Park Building. We’re excited about that,” Carter said.
The building, once ready, will house third- and fourth-year medical students that come to the university from the University of South Carolina and the Medical University of South Carolina. While that is going on a new building by the DNR building will go up. “To coincide with (Circle Park Renovations), SLED will put their new regional office across the road and about the time that office gets finished we’ll finish the Circle Park Building downtown, but it won’t be called the Circle Park Building; it’ll be called the Eddy Floyd Medical Consortium building.
All of the entrances to the main campus of Francis Marion University will have new signage as part of a campus renovation project. “We’re delighted to have SLED out here,” Carter said of the state investigative agency. It will build beside the regional offices for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
“It gives us more law enforcement presence on campus but also provides internship and learning opportunities for our students. It’s all very very positive. We’re talking about two agencies that are two of the finest agencies in South Carolina government,” Carter said.
Just as the DNR headquarters has proven a resource to the campus so will the SLED headquarters. “SLED will be a terrific asset to our sociology, political and criminal justice programs. SLED will be a terrific asset as far as continuing training for our campus police force,” Carter said.
As a pitch to other state agencies that need a regional headquarters Carter said the university would find the land for them to build upon. The changes, most of which front Francis Marion Road and face the university’s athletic complex, make the school more visible to the community it serves. The university has about 1,000 acres of campus all told, including the main campus, undeveloped areas adjacent to it, the Continuum in Lake City, the freshwater ecology center across just north of Interstate 95 at S.
C.327 and five buildings in Downtown Florence. “Our legislators (the late) Hugh Leatherman, Phillip Lowe, Jay Jordan, Roger Kirby, Terry Alexander, and Kent Williams have all been terrific in bringing these things to us,” Carter said.
“Our philanthropists — Bruce & Lee, Bruce & Lee, Bruce & Lee, Darla Moore — the last few years Darla has been a pretty substantial contributor to the university as well as Bruce and Lee and the hospitals,” Carter said. The Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation has been a huge supporter of the university and Florence in general.
Never one to stand still for any period of time, Carter said he was already thinking of the next program for the university — something involving engineering. “The next question over the next years is do we add a third, I think we either look at electrical engineering or civil engineering. I think it will be electrical because that seems to be where the demand is across the region,” Carter said.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing.
When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. When FMU students returned to campus en masse Friday they found that portions of the campus were a work in progress -- and that was a good thing. Online/News Editor Matt Robertson is a veteran journalist who has fulfilled just about every role that a newspaper has and now serves as the Editor of the Morning News’ newsroom by maintaining SCNow.
com and the Morning News print edition. Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Online/News Editor {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
.
