The Board of Governors recently discussed plans to sell and renovate various properties on and off campus during a meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 7.
Toney Stroud, Marshall University’s chief legal officer, said the property being sold was originally planned to house the baseball stadium. After further discussions, a new piece of property was chosen because the new property was a better fit for the stadium compared to the initial locale, Stroud said.
“There were some costs associated with development of the property and some additional things where the situation of the stadium were not ideal,” Stroud said. “We were able to find the new location, and it just fit our stadium better and was a better place to build a stadium than the 5th Ave.”
Alongside the property being sold, two off-campus sites are planned to be renovated.
Stroud said the construction projects would cover buildings from the School of Medicine in Teays Valley and Chapmanville. The Chapmanville building will have its second floor finished, while the Teays Valley branch will have a toxicology lab and dermatology suite installed. Stroud said these renovations are part of a larger plan for Marshall to provide rural West Virginia with better health care and provide students with more opportunities.
“Rural healthcare and access is a problem in West Virginia,” Stroud said. “So it allows us to not only help the citizens and the residents who live in those rural areas, but then give some of our students – you know – we have a number of students who want to practice in rural areas.”
Stroud said these renovations are funded by a pre-existing fund and will not set back the university from escaping its deficit. He also said funds from the property sale will be put into both the university and funding the rest of the baseball stadium.
Stroud said the property will be turned into a mixed-use district; various restaurants and housing will be built. He said a few national restaurant chains have already inquired about opening branches.
“It’s going to create another, hopefully, mixed-use district in this area to add more entities to campus,” Stroud said.
Stroud said having more mixed-use districts is important to provide for the students. Besides building up the local economics of the Huntington area, it also provides more things for students to do, such as going to a sports bar or going shopping. There are even talks about using it to expand the outdoor entertainment available. He said it would also help entice more people to come to Huntington.
“If there’s a housing development, for example, there could be retail on the first floor and then housing above that,” Stroud said. “It gives students more access to more restaurants, more things to do. It just gives our students the availability of more things to do in Huntington, West Virginia.”
