Second Chance Preservation--Vacated historic college campus is rehabilitated into Georgia state agency headquarters

摘要

A dormant 40-aore college campus, which lay vacant for more than 10 years, has been given a new life as the headquarters and training academy for the Georgia Department of Corrections. The campus, located 65 miles south of Atlanta and now called the State Offices South at Tift College, opened last fall after four years of research, planning, infrastructure upgrades and the full rehabilitation of 13 structures. The massive renovation and adaptive reuse project, which encompassed 225,000 square feet, was led by Atlanta-based architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent in a collaboration of its Education and Historic Preservation design studios. Founded in 1849 as the Forsyth Female Collegiate Institute, Tift College, as it was later known, was a private liberal arts women's college. In 1986 the college merged with Mercer University, and its 40-acre campus, a portion of which is listed on the National Register of Historic places, was left vacant. When the property was acquired by the state of Georgia in 2000, the campus contained 17 buildings, a majority of which were 50 years or older and considered to be historically significant.