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SC State needs $80M to finish transportation center

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COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - It took 14 years and $24 million to make one building a reality. It's the transit center -- the first phase of the James Clyburn transportation center at SC State.

The building has three garage bays, offices, and houses hundreds of thousands of dollars of heating and air units that are supposed to service the rest of the Clyburn Center.

"It requires us to raise another $80 million in order to complete that," said SC State President Dr. George Cooper.

Cooper told his board he's found a way to make that money. Cooper's plan is to partner with private companies and even more tax dollars to finish the center named for the congressman who got the project funds approved by Congress, SC State alum Jim Clyburn.

"We believe that through these partnerships with private companies and with the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation, that we'll be able to realize that programmatic support," said Cooper.

Another major problem in SC State's way is that it lost federal designation as a university transportation center in 2006. That means the programs they offer are not supported under the federal transportation research center program.

That didn't stop SC State from hiring a man to run their center. Last April, SC State hired Dr. Charles Wright and is paying him $110,000 a year to run the Clyburn Center -- a center that's less than 18 percent complete.

Some board members, like trustee Robert Waldrip, still have questions about the reality of ever finishing the Clyburn Center.

"I just understand there was a problem with the money for funding the operations, you might say it's a situation where I wasn't sure, it's been very murky to me," said Waldrip to Cooper. "When is it going to be a viable operating entity?

Cooper responded, "The Transit Research Center is a viable operating entity as we speak. The questions we have to address relates to the completion of the Transit Research Center in it's original configuration."

However, most of the center is still an empty field until the university figures out how it's going to come up with the money to finish it.

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