Next year at this time, classes are scheduled to be in session on Samford University’s new property, the former Southern Progress campus. The university completed its purchase of the 28 acres last month for $58 million.
The land currently houses three large buildings and 1,073 parking spaces adjacent to Samford’s eastern side of campus.
“We are really excited about it because we felt like we can utilize the property better than anyone else because we are adjacent to it,” said Randy Pittman, Samford’s vice president for university advancement. “We had to do something because the university is growing. We can move in quicker than if we built from the ground up.”
Pittman said it will take about 10 minutes to walk from the center of the existing campus to the newly acquired buildings. It takes about the same amount of time to walk from the center of campus to its other end where tennis courts are housed.
Southern Progress’ current Southern Living, Cooking Light, Coastal Living and book publisher Oxmoor House operations will move to the building farthest to the west on the property after it is built out to fill their operational needs. Time Inc. is signing a multi-year lease with Samford for the space.
Samford’s growing College of Health Sciences will be moving into two of the other buildings following renovations.
An engineer is now working on the appropriate location for a pedestrian and road connection between the existing campus and newly acquired property. An architect has been redesigning the existing buildings since negotiations between the university and corporation started. Office spaces will be reconfigured into classrooms in addition to some minor renovations.
The existing magazine test kitchens will still be used as kitchens for the school’s nutrition program but will be reworked as education space rather than purely experimental space.
Several Samford faculty and staff members will move into the buildings before students use them as they work to establish new programs for the school including graduate level physical therapy, speech and hearing disorders and social work departments. Undergraduate programs will be housed in the space as well.
