The sale of the former Birmingham-Southern College campus is now complete. The U.S. Coast Guard closed on the 192-acre property Thursday in a $126.5 million deal. The school on Birmingham's west side closed its doors in May 2024 after years of financial struggles.
Daniel Coleman is BSC's final president and had lead efforts the past two years to find a buyer for the campus. He spoke with WBHM’s Richard Banks.
The following interview was edited for time and clarity.
How are you doing now that this sale, this saga is just about behind you?
I've got a lot of thoughts. I became president about seven and a half years ago. When I became president, I knew the college was in dire financial straits. I thought we could fix it. I might've been naive, but I was optimistic. We hit COVID head on. That hurt us, hurt our enrollment and hurt us financially. And coming out of COVID, I spent two years trying to get the state of Alabama to lend us money against the value of the campus so we could continue our fundraising effort and save the college. Now we know how that ended, where the state of Alabama refused to release the funds. And then I spent two years trying to really come up with a way to find the right use for that campus and pay off our creditors. So it's been a long seven and a half years for me and for a lot of people.
One doesn't necessarily think Coast Guard when one thinks Birmingham. So how did this sale come about?
It was more than a year ago, a little more than a year ago, our broker in Chicago called me and said, "The U.S. Coast Guard wants to see the campus." And my immediate reaction, as everyone says, is have they looked at a map lately? There's not much water here. And my broker said, "They know that. They want to see it anyway." So I was like, sure.
So they came down and we showed them the campus. They were looking at things that your average college didn't look at. They loved our galley, which is our cafeteria. We actually have a shooting range on campus because Birmingham-Southern used to have a riflery team and they loved the president's house and other things. So they knew they were gonna have to increase the number of people in the Coast Guard by about 15,000 in the next few years and they just didn't have enough training facilities and they wanted to bring together all of their onshore training facilities in one place.
What details can you offer about, say, for instance, price?
The price is public. The price that we're selling the campus to the Coast Guard is $126.5 million. It is priced based on Yellow Book appraisal, which is required by law for government entities to buy real estate. It's a price we think is a good price. It enables us to pay off all of our creditors and have money to create this foundation.
What is this foundation? What will it do?
With our endowment, we will try to do something good for our community. I would like to do something in the education space, perhaps scholarships for kids from Alabama to go to colleges like Birmingham-Southern, but we'll see. We've got a lot of work to do, but this is good work.
When this story first broke, the initial reaction from Birmingham-Southern's neighbors and the greater Birmingham-Southern community was mostly positive. There were a few people that had concerns. What can you say to allay those fears that the Coast Guard will somehow degrade the campus?
Coast Guard is gonna put tens of millions of dollars into that campus very quickly, and they've got a plan for even more later. The Coast Guard's gonna bring about 400 people to this community to live and work, and indirectly will create hundreds of jobs. I expect about 5,000 people in the Coast Guard will come through Birmingham every year. It will bring tremendous activity to the neighborhood. They're gonna be great neighbors. I promise you that. They came down last week and one of their meetings was with the neighborhood associations of College Hills and Bush Hills, answered a lot of their questions
It's been two years now since the campus closed down, the school closed down at least officially. How do you feel about the way this ultimately played out?
The way it ended is the best ending we could have hoped for. The journey to get here was quite difficult, emotional. It was hard for a lot of people, but there couldn't be a better buyer, both with respect to what they bring to Birmingham economically, both, I would say, the character of the people I've met and how they feel about integrating in the community. And so, to be a part of our community, to bring the resources they have, to elevate our community with so many people coming through Birmingham and see what a city we have. It couldn't be a better option.
