High School Restoration No Easy Task

By Robert Behre, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.

Apr. 3–In some ways, the rehabilitation of the old High School of Charleston into the Medical University of South Carolina’s new College of Health Professions complex can be considered a big win for preservationists.

After all, the building made the Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of most endangered historic sites just six years ago.

Not only is it no longer endangered — its reincarnation will be dedicated Friday -but MUSC has reused it for classrooms, not simply as a visual screen for a parking garage that was considered at one point.

Danielle Ripich, dean of MUSC’s College of Health Professions, says if you called up central casting and asked for an early 20th century American high school, this would be it.

“Some didn’t see it as a valuable building, but we did. We thought it should have students in it,” she says. “That seemed to be the purpose it was best suited for.”

But reusing the old building was no easy task.

Its problems extended beyond the simple fact that it was built 85 years ago, before the modern era of building codes. The high school closed many years ago and largely has stood empty. It’s been damaged by a fire and numerous water leaks.

Jon Musselman of Mashburn Construction describes an interior that was dangerously compromised.

“There were sections where we had to walk one at a time because the floor was so soggy we thought it might give way under a big group of people,” he says.

Also, architect Barry Jenkins says MUSC wanted the building brought up to modern codes, including seismic codes.

As a result, Dean Wilson of Mashburn Construction says the work occurred in several phases, beginning with a structural skeleton around the high school walls, interior demolition, pile driving and a new steel skeleton inside. All that really survives of the old school are its exterior walls and interior courtyard walls.

While those could be considered its most defining features, Cynthia Jenkins of the Preservation Society says she was disappointed that the building can’t be considered a work of preservation in the strict sense, because that involves keeping the existing form, integrity and materials. It’s also not a restoration, which is when repair work returns a building to a particular point in time.

“I’m not even sure you can call it a rehabilitation,” she says. “It might border somewhat on a reconstruction. I don’t think any of us anticipated the level of demolition that was done.”

While preservationists might have lamented the loss of so much of the structure, Barry Jenkins says the high school’s alumni groups were active in the design process and supported the approach.

Also, the school was not brought up to code in one fashion: It still has its metal window frames and 3,600 single panes of glass inside them. While that kept its original look, the windows don’t meet current energy or impact standards.

Even with the high level of reconstruction, the high school portion cost about $6.5 million, about 30 percent more than the similarly sized new building constructed immediately to the north on Rutledge Avenue.

“There’s a lot of pressure to do the maximum for the minimum. It was a fine line to make sure we’re using our resources well,” Ripich says. “This project was a way to give back to Charleston.”

The building work was not done with state money. Instead, MUSC’s Health Science Foundation built it using a design-build approach, in which the entire project was designed, permitted and constructed on a fast-track timetable.

The project also included a 700-car parking garage and a similar sized new building to the north. Barry Jenkins says the goal was to do a clearly contemporary building that didn’t replicate the high school in detail but borrowed from its height, color, materials and proportions. “We wanted the high school to stand on its own,” he says.

The old and new buildings are linked by an attractive courtyard with a wavy glass wall in the rear. The only wrong note seems to be that one of the courtyard’s main focal points on the ground level is a less than attractive glimpse into the complex’s parking garage.

Before this complex opened last year, MUSC’s College of Health Professions had been scattered throughout seven buildings and lacked a clear identity. Today, it still has an identity issue, but a far different one.

At the urging of high school alumni, the architects left “High School of Charleston” engraved on the front and above the original entrance on the interior courtyard. The inside also features a metal emblem in the floor and commemorative bricks in memory of former students.

Sometimes it seems as though there’s more labeling for the old high school than the new health school, but it’s doubtful this will cause that much confusion these days.

In any case, the original inscription that still survives above the original door in the atrium still applies: “Erected for the Higher Education of Youth.”

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