Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Architectural researchers at Mississippi State's Carl Small Town Center are concluding a six-month project with Blue Mountain College to help the private institution better utilize vacant municipal properties it owns.
The four-year Baptist-affiliated institution in Tippah County contacted the Starkville-based university center in April to request assistance in developing several off-campus buildings.
Located in a town of the same name about five miles southwest of Ripley--the county seat--Blue Mountain College is supported by the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board. Founded as a women's college in 1873 and co-educational since 2005, the school enrolls more than 360 students. Blue Mountain, the municipality, has a population of some 700.
The Carl Small Town Center is the outreach arm of the Mississippi State University's School of Architecture, which provides the only professional training of its kind in the state.
Cari Varner, the center's community development research associate, said, "We recently made our final presentation to the strategic planning committee, which included artist renderings of the buildings."
Varner said the majority of the project centered around an empty bank building on Main Street. Specifically, she said the final plan proposes converting the space into three separate units: a café and coffee shop, new campus store and combined Internet café and print shop.
Portions of the second floor also would be used for student housing, while a smaller area would serve as a community meeting space, she added.
"The idea behind our proposal was to help Blue Mountain College better engage with the town of Blue Mountain and reach out into the community," Varner explained. "We are encouraging college leaders to create an overall lifestyle center with amenities that would be beneficial to both community and college."
She said plans also involved:
--Transformation of a current storage building into a creative writing center; and
--Recommendations that vehicle and pedestrian access to buildings be better integrated in both campus and downtown areas.
President Bettye Coward said she and other Blue Mountain officials "were very pleased with the work of the Carl Small Town Center.
"Their proposal has opened up a whole new area of ideas," Coward said. "We have presented their ideas to the board, and all are looking at these properties in a different light. Working with them has been a very stimulating experience."
Coward said discussion has already begun about successive steps for the project, as well as possible sources of funding.
Established in 1979, the Carl Small Town Center is named for Fred Carl Jr., founder of the Greenwood-based Viking Range Corp. and a major benefactor of MSU's College of Architecture, Art and Design. Community design and improvement, economic diversification, town planning, and conservation of architectural and historic resources are among assistance programs it provides.
The School of Architecture, which was created by the Mississippi Legislature in 1973, also has three other major research centers. They include the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, Design Research and Information Laboratory, and Educational Design Institute.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For additional information on the Blue Mountain project or the MSU Center, contact Varner at 662-325-2207 or 325-8671.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.