WEST POINT — Abandoned for nearly two decades, the stairs of the Kenneth G. Neigh Dormitory Complex at Mary Holmes Community College off Highway 50, once heavy with the steps of eager students, now sit covered in vines.
The dorm’s windows are boarded. Animals have long laid their claim on the dorms and their halls. Aside from deteriorated furniture that remains in the courtyard, they bear little resemblance to the busy social centers they were designed to be.
But there’s hope that the dorms may return to life in the near future.
Dream Center Golden Triangle is looking to conduct a feasibility study to show whether the dorm complex can be repurposed for affordable apartments. The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Thursday it will fund the study with a $150,000 grant from its Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Fund.
Dream Center Executive Director Cole Bryan, who also serves as city selectman for Ward 5, said the revitalization will aim to address the lack of affordable housing options in Clay County.
“This is the need right now in not just Clay County, but the Golden Triangle,” Bryan told The Dispatch Friday. “There’s a housing shortage and housing affordability issue everywhere, so we want to be a part of solving that.”
Roger Pryor, founding director of the PryorMorrow architectural firm, approached Bryan with the idea to repurpose the dorms in 2019. He had always had an interest in the buildings due to their historical and architectural significance. Refurbishing the dorms into affordable housing, he said, would solve a problem while also saving the buildings from being demolished.
“The last time I checked, we had 700 families in Clay County on the waiting list for low- to moderate-income housing,” Pryor said. “I think the buildings are important enough that they need to be saved, and low to moderate income housing I think is really the ticket for that place.”
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) assumed control of the dorms after Mary Holmes closed in 2005. Bryan said the church agreed to give the building to Dream Center if the project is viable.
Bryan said the study will start next month and take approximately one year to complete. His hope is that engineering plans will follow to turn the dorms into at least 70 apartment units. The renovation will be extensive, he said.
“The renovation of this building will include everything but demolition of the structure,” he said. “Plumbing is going to be huge. HVAC is going to be a big deal in that building because there is no HVAC system, and there’s no room in between the floors for duct work.”
As for who will benefit from the housing, Bryan said it’s still up in the air.
“Our minds are open as far as who that population needs to be because the population that you serve could be largely dependent on where the money’s coming from,” he said.
Building the dorms
While the age of the buildings warrants a major makeover, the history of the complex has been a driving force in the effort to revitalize the dorms, Bryan said.
“I’m excited for people to get familiar with it because for the most part, people don’t know how significant that building is,” he said. “It’s in danger of being demolished, and this is a big step in saving it.”
Mary Holmes Community College was founded as a Presbyterian Seminary in 1892 in Jackson. The school was relocated to West Point in 1895 after a fire destroyed the original building. A second fire in 1899 caused the school to rebuild again in 1900.
Construction on the dorms started in 1968 with a tight time frame and a limited budget in an effort to remedy a housing crisis on the campus.
They were designed by J. Max Bond Jr., a Black architect who would go on to design the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
“Max Bond was a big deal,” Pryor said. “The last project he did was the 9/11 Museum in New York. Max Bond was a real mover and shaker.”
Bond became one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, but nearly 40 years before he designed the 9/11 Museum, he took on the Neigh Dormitories as his first project.
Built to house 550 college students, the complex consists of seven brown brick buildings with deep-set windows. Its brutalist design, defined by strong geometric motifs, includes an outdoor courtyard enveloped by the buildings.
The buildings were designed with common areas located a half level above and below the student rooms and an excess of corridors that allowed students several ways to enter and exit rooms. The idea, Bryan said, was to facilitate freedom of choice for the students, who were attending a historically Black community college in Mississippi during the ongoing Civil Rights Movement.
“You’re not confined to one social area,” Bryan said. “It’s about spatial freedom. It was about African American students taking control over their living situation. … It’s just freedom of choice. At that time, that was a pretty radical thing.”
The dorms were finished in 1970 and housed students until the school closed in 2005. Bryan and Pryor successfully had the dorms added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 26 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
