WILMINGTON — As excitement swirls around the former Bracebridge campus with the talk of Incyte’s impending move, officials behind the Community Education Building (CEB) are starting conversations on a second project that not only would be a catalyst for the city’s economy, but also Wilmington children’s future.
The Longwood Foundation has been quietly working the last few weeks to secure public funding to turn the last remaining Bank of America building at the Bracebridge campus into a higher education complex, including programs from Delaware State University (DSU), the University of Delaware and Widener University Delaware Law School.
The entire project, nicknamed the Bridge, is estimated to cost $57 million of which the foundation has already secured $10 million from the state’s bond bill, as well as $10 million from the city of Wilmington. If the project is fully realized, it could bring 2,600 students to the heart of the city each day to learn, shop, dine and even rent apartments.
But for the CEB Chief Operating Officer Tamara Morris, the biggest promise it offers is to lift up Wilmington’s children. Right now, the CEB serves 1,300 students through K-12 schools Kuumba Academy, Great Oaks Charter School, and the High Road School of Delaware.
“The overarching goal of the Bridge is not only to provide quality education for our kids who grow up here, but also to attract the best and the brightest to Delaware. It’s our goal that the Bridge becomes an innovation hub that seeks to provide answers to some of the systemic generational issues that have plagued Wilmington and Delaware,” Morris said during a community event on Oct. 16.
More than 95% of the students that already come through the CEB are either Black or Hispanic and 70% live in Wilmington, according to a memo CEB CEO Linda Jennings wrote to the Wilmington Finance and Economic Development Committee which the Delaware Business Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
That memo also said that “many live in areas where 40% of the population live below the poverty line” and only 8% students have a two-parent household.
Outside of K-12 education programs, the CEB also includes a full complement of community services, including ChristianaCare’s school-based health services, Delaware Guidance mental health services, Code Differently, grassroots community organizing nonprofit Network Connect and more. The building also includes a family resource center that offers behavioral health counseling, benefits navigation and parent education.
“Targeted community organizations will provide badly needed public health and social engagement services to local residents. The mere presence of this involved population will have a re-energizing effect on downtown Wilmington,” Jennings wrote in her memo to city officials.
With Widener Law School looking to relocate to the Bridge while leaving its campus off of Concord Pike behind, it also opens the door for residents to access legal aid. Weidner already has six clinics in civil, environmental, innocence, veterans and criminal defense, and more
For Widener Law School Dean Todd Clark, the move, on paper, may be a downsize from 30 acres and 317,000 square feet to 91,000 square feet. But it’s a shift in perspective of how the law school wants to serve Delaware.
“Imagine being in the city where the community liaisons are out in the city and they come in contact with a family that’s experiencing domestic violence. After many talks, that family can come into the domestic violence clinic that’s literally blocks away,” Clark said. “Imagine that there are counseling services in the same space for your child that’s struggling. Oh, by the way, your daughter who wants to be a lawyer? We can also connect her to minority law students that can serve as a mentor along her journey.”
“This is not about how this benefits Delaware Law School. It’s about how Delaware Law School can be a change agent in Wilmington,” he added.
Widener Law School alone would bring 750 students and 145 faculty and staff to the facility and greater Wilmington area.
Outside of Widener Law School, DSU will bring nursing, occupational therapy and physician assistant programs to help train the next generation of health care practitioners and health researchers in the state. The University of Delaware has long since offered its two-year associate in arts program at the CEB, which already serves 470 students and UD officials are now exploring opportunities to expand its programming by potentially adding programs in nonprofit management and pre-law.
UD officials confirmed to the Delaware Business Times that the institution has started to develop a partnership with Widener’s co-located law program and UD’s Small Business Development Center to support entrepreneurs in Wilmington.
The CEB estimates that UD would bring 1,200 students to the Bridge within three years, while DSU would bring 400 students in the same time period, according to the memo that DBT obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. UD would also bring 100 faculty and staff while DSU would bring 30.
