The  College of Charleston Foundation announced plans to purchase McLeod Plantation on James Island in September. 

Before they can make the purchase final the Foundation must perform due diligence and discovery of the 38-acre property. The Foundation as the buyer, the Historic Charleston Foundation as the seller and the College of Charleston as an interested party have agreed to extend the due diligence period from Jan. 13 to February to allow the College’s Board of Trustees and the Foundation board to vote on the purchase. 

College of Charleston Foundation Executive Director and Executive Vice President for Institutional Advancement George Watt plays an important role in the discovery process. 

“The due diligence process continues, the discovery process continues, and we’re not in a position right now to say what our ultimate recommendation is,” Watt said.

Watt says the Foundation and the College are considering the long-term finances of acquiring McLeod Plantation. If the Foundation buys McLeod, it is agreeing to stabilize its antebellum structures.

“There are at least 13 antebellum structures, ranging from a barn to a dairy to an old gin house to the main house to five or six slave cabins, among other structures, all built in the antebellum era, so they range from 170 years old to even older. No one’s been taking care of them. So we assume that responsibility financially and morally if we acquire McLeod,” Watt said. 

A historic architect has estimated the cost of stabilization in the low $100,000 range, Watt said. The buildings, which are in great disrepair, must be stabilized to keep them from being knocked over by a high wind, Watt said.

The Foundation pays for the inspections, analyses and everything else that goes along with due diligence out of their privately held funds. Watt says they have not used any state, College or tuition money. 

The Foundation works with the College to find and contract experts in fields such as ground-penetrating radar and appraisal, Watt said. 

If the Foundation does buy McLeod, it will purchase it with $4 million in private funds. 

Once the plantation is purchased the Foundation would lease it to the College. State statute mandates that the two parties sign an approved lease with some value exchange agreed upon for the College’s use of the property, Watt said. 

Watt says McLeod Plantation has the potential to enrich both the student experience and academic mission of C of C. The College has a nationally renowned undergraduate historic preservation program. The Foundation and the College hope C of C can develop premier undergraduate and graduate historic preservation programs, Watt said. 

“We would provide a living laboratory called McLeod Plantation,” Watt said. 

College professors and students would restore and preserve McLeod.

“Our thought was to use our own faculty and undergraduate and graduate students to do much of the historic preservation over time. There would still be material costs, but we wouldn’t be bringing in outside contractors,” Watt said. “It would be the College faculty, College students, our own curriculum, our own program out there actually working. So they’re no longer just studying historic preservation, they’re doing it.”

The Foundation’s plan for McLeod is changing as they learn more about the property. 

Ground-penetrating radar has discovered unmarked gravesites in designated build zones. 

“We’re not going to build there. It’s wooded. It’s grown over. What we’d like to do is restore it to the dignity that gravesites require,” Watt said.

The Foundation intends to build support structures for academic programs, including classrooms, labs and offices, and restroom facilities for intramural fields in areas fit for construction, Watt said.

The Friends of McLeod, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of this sea island plantation, does not want the College to acquire McLeod Plantation. The Friends are circulating a petition against HCF selling McLeod to C of C, which they say would destroy its historic integrity. The Friends would like McLeod open to the public and preserved exactly as it was, according to their Web site. 

“McLeod is something that every school child in South Carolina should see,” said Carol Jacobsen, Friends of McLeod vice chairman. 

The Friends do not want the College to build any new structures on the property, which Watt says is a point of contention.

“Without structures the property isn’t accessible,” Watt said. “If it’s not accessible then how could we ever use it to teach and raise public awareness?”

Watt says the Foundation cannot preserve the property by leaving it alone.

“That’s why these buildings are in disrepair. They’ve been left alone,” Watt said. “These fields are all overgrown. They’re hideous where they were once probably beautiful.” McLeod Plantation would double the size of the College’s existing campus. The land and structures would give the College the space to expand existing programs and enrich both student life and the community.

“Our vision was it would be a combination of agricultural fields, with a supporting greenhouse, with playing fields for our intramural programs, with one or two support structures, with classrooms, labs, etc., a small area for parking,” Watt said. “[We] would make it accessible to our graduate and undergraduate students and our faculty, while preserving the antebellum structures and teaching interpretive history of the antebellum era.” 

Watt says he gets more excited every time he goes to McLeod, but no one can make a decision without all the facts. 

“This may not happen,” Watt said. “We may make the decision that we can’t make it happen because we can’t get to this collaborative agreement of all of the interested parties and align to the College’s mission.”

McLeod could give the College of Charleston the resources to educate and impact tourists and South Carolina residents about a dark but important piece of Southern history.

“The great public universities also serve the greater community. They don’t just serve the campus,” Watt said. “With McLeod we can serve the greater community and do things that others can’t do.”