Early Monday morning the intersection of Hildebrand and Broadway was livelier than usual as University of Incarnate Word students began commuting to and from the main campus and Founders Hall, the university’s 380,000-square-foot expansion across the street.
In the spring of 2019, UIW purchased the nine-story building with an attached 500-space parking garage. The building was once the headquarters of Southwestern Bell and AT&T, and it later became the answer to UIW’s main campus expansion needs.
On Monday, as students trickled into 50 brand-new classrooms inside Founders Hall, university officials, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, faculty, students and alumni gathered to commemorate the milestone with a ribbon cutting ceremony and a blessing at the new Col. Charles E. Cheever Legacy Event Center.
“I’m so excited to finally welcome you into this space. It has been a dream for the University of Incarnate Word community for some time,” said UIW President Thomas Evans during the ceremony.
“When this property first became available, we viewed it as a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Evans continued. “As a landlocked campus, there were very few opportunities for physical growth.”
This purchase delivered on this growth, expanding the university’s footprint along Broadway Avenue by 20%, Evans said. The university hired Lake Flato, an architecture design firm based in part out of San Antonio, to lead the design and restoration of the 1950s historic building.
The first stage of the renovation included the first four floors of Founders Hall — named after the sisters who founded UIW — which now house the School of Media and Design, the School of Math, Science and Engineering, the International Affairs Department, the Liza and Jack Lewis Center of the Americas, the University Police Department and the Student Health Center.
Faculty were the first to move into the new building in June, Evans said, immediately after the end of the spring semester. Then administrators and staff began occupying their new offices.
It was a busy summer, he said, as they began utilizing the space to make sure it was fully ready for the start of the fall semester.
“We moved in people in stages,” Evans said in an interview after the event. “So as the faculty moved in and started using the space, we started getting feedback… it was kind of a breaking-in period as we used the technology and worked out the kinks.”
This fall the university is welcoming its largest incoming student class ever, Evans said, just as they are adding more space. Early student counts report about 1,150 first time students at UIW this fall semester, about a month ahead of census day, which provides the official headcount.
“It really gave us elbow room, a lot of elbow room,” Evans said about the added space. “It also gives us the swing space that we’ve never had. So as we renovate other parts of the campus, where do we put people? Now we have that space.”
Because only four of the nine floors were part of the first stage of the renovation, Evans said the next big undertaking will be the remaining floors.
There is no official timeline for this yet, he said, but the top floors will likely include less student-facing space, such as the business office, information technology, human resources and perhaps some residential space.
As students began to wander the halls of the new building, officials also pointed out three new murals, painted by local artists and students, that represent UIW’s past, present and future, rooted in the university’s history, faith, mission.
“When we were designing this building, we called students, faculty, board members, leaders, and more to help us build our bold vision,” Evans said. “It needed to reflect our mission and honor our spiritual heritage given to us by our founders, the Sisters of Charity of Incarnate Word.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
This story originally appeared in the San Antonio Report.