A pair of phone calls made a dozen years apart to Longwood Foundation’s Thère du Pont from executives at Bank of America – each call offering the donation of a large office building in downtown Wilmington – set into motion the founding of a three-part education initiative that could establish an education campus at all academic levels.
That first call du Pont received came in 2010, after the Longwood Foundation had just finished turning the 12-story Montchanin building at 100 W. 10th Street into an office complex for 70 nonprofits. At the time, Bank of America was looking to shed some of its properties, namely the giant Bracebridge complex the company inherited when it acquired MBNA on Jan. 1, 2006 for $35 billion.
“We already had the Community Services Building [at 100 W. 10th St.], which was given to the foundation by DuPont,” du Pont said. “I said I didn’t need another home for nonprofits. So we decided to create a child-friendly, school-friendly building – and we wouldn’t have to go looking for real estate to house it.”
The end result was the Community Education Building (CEB) established in 2012 in Bracebridge 4 of the former MBNA complex. Today, the CEB houses 1,100 pre-K to secondary students and staff, including four separate schools as well as auxiliary services, according to CEB CEO Linda Jennings. Most of the entering students are one to two grade levels behind their peers and are facing adverse childhood experiences. Nine-five percent are African-American or Hispanic, and 70% are Wilmington residents. The CEB represents $110 million of private investment.
What sets the CEB apart from other schools is that it has an integrated support system, pairing each student with an advocate to guide each student through their journey. The idea is that if the CEB closes the opportunity gap, the education outcomes will improve.Working hand-in-hand, the advocate and the students create a plan that includes goals and skills for a successful life – and a way to track progress. This approach is modeled after the work at the Harlem Children’s Zone, namely its Student Advocacy Center.
In 2022, du Pont got a similar call from Bank of America - offering yet another building. The banking giant would later announce it would exit the city by 2025, moving its 200 workers to offices in Pike Creek and in Stanton.
“But we didn’t need space for four more charter schools. So Linda and I said, ‘What if we went up from the grades we now have to the college level?’” du Pont said.
That building was Bracebridge 2, located at 11th and French streets. Under the project title of the “The Bridge,” the yet-to-be renovated office building is scheduled to open in fall 2027 and will house the Widener University Delaware Law School as well as programs of the University of Delaware, Delaware State University and community organizations such as the Delaware Health Equity Organization. The idea is to offer a seamless education path for Wilmingtonians from kindergarten to college - and perhaps career. All told, it could bring $250 million in economic impact to downtown Wilmington, through signed apartment leases to restaurants catering to adult students in between classes.
In addition to the two Bracebridge buildings, a Youth Development Center will be built on the current parking lot at 315 E. 12 St. With groundbreaking scheduled in 2026, that $20 million facility will include gyms, an early learning center, after school and workforce development programs to serve 7,800 students and community members.
The cost for the Bridge renovations would be close to $60 million to complete, and the project has already secured state and city funds for it. Altogether, the future education complex will contain 3,500 students from pre-K to law school and involve 400 jobs when completed, all within two blocks. But du Pont said beyond the bridge, the hope is to expand the scope 10 more blocks south to the Christiana River.
“Our 20-year-vision is that Wilmington will have an education campus corridor stretching to the Riverfront, where Delaware State has a facility,” du Pont said. Right now, DSU has a six-story facility on Orange Street, which houses graduate, adult and continuing education programs. That building was donated to the school in 2021 by Capital One.
“[But] before we close the deal with Bank of America, we still need an additional $7 million in funding and the signed leases of the three major tenants – the law school, University of Delaware,” he added.
All this educational activity is being administered by the CEB, which Jennings has headed since 2016. “Like health care, education is all connected to so many other things,” she said. “We want to help students gain the economic freedom, the social freedom and other freedoms to get them over the divide.”
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The Community Education Building (CEB) occupies Bracebridge 4 of the complex constructed by MBA, while the Widener University Law School will be housed in The Bridge project Bracebridge 2. Bracebridge 1 and 3 will be the new home of Incyte. | PHOTO COURTESY OF HOMSEY ARCHITECTS[/caption]
Many of the community organizations already housed in the CEB building are dedicated to that purpose, including ChristianaCare Health Services, Family Resource Center services, life coaching and resources for families, Student Advocate one-to-one mentoring and navigation support, Delaware Guidance mental health services, Network Connect grassroots community organizing, Summer Collab out-of-school-time programs and Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Additionally, the CEB’s Family Resource Center offers a food pantry, behavioral health counseling, benefits navigation, case management, workforce development and parent education.
Both Jennings and du Pont use the analogy that the CEB “acts as a quarterback” to help direct resources to people and people to resources. “Our philosophy is that, rather than having people come to us trying to figure out where to find resources for their needs, we try to discover their needs and direct them to the resources,” Jennings said.
One of those needs is often legal services, so when the Bracebridge 2 building was offered two years ago, the CEB saw a potential answer in having the law school as a tenant.
“As late as 2017-2018, the school had explored several relocation options downtown, including the waterfront and Bracebridge, but the deals fell apart, usually because of finances,” said Todd Clark, who joined Delaware Law School as its dean in July 2023.
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The CEB works closely with staff like CEB Librarian Shardai LeMon and CEB Middle School Lead Advocate Anthony Caporelli to best support students. Advocates work hand-in-hand with students to create a strategy for each student's academic success and beyond. | PHOTO COURTESY OF THE COMMUNITY EDUCATION BUILDING[/caption]
Shortly after, Clark got a call from Thère and Linda about the availability of Bracebridge 2. “I wanted to be certain we didn’t let down our faculty another time, so we did a lot of internal discussion and due diligence before saying ‘yes.’ We also talked to the other potential tenants in the building,” he said.
Now located on Concord Pike, the law school will bring to the city its six legal clinics and will give students closer access to courts and to legal firms. When fully operational, the school is expected to have 750 students, including about 140 enrolled in evening classes, 112 faculty and 33 staff members. The CEB estimates the Bridge facility will also house 1,200 UD students and 80 faculty members as well as 400 DSU students and 20 faculty.
“Already, we’ve had discussions with the University of Delaware about possibly locating their pre-law program downtown,” Clark said. “As well as developing a 3+3 program for Delaware students to get both their BA and JD in only six years.” According to Clark, the law school will occupy about half the building.
“Moving to the city was all about the opportunities,” he added. “When I first met with Thère and Linda, I said we have to be part of this.”
Yet to be resolved are many parking and housing issues. Clark said that although the law school currently has student housing at its Concord Pike location, it will not provide housing in Wilmington even though many foreign and out-of-state students will be enrolled each year.
“I expect we will need housing for 200 or 300 students altogether,” du Pont predicts, as well as for faculty members wanting to live near campus. He points out most of the recent units opened downtown are already occupied. “It is cheaper for many people working in Philadelphia to commute by car or train from Wilmington,” he said. “We have been in conversations about this with Buccini-Pollin,” the firm which over the past few years has constructed hundreds of new downtown housing units, to see what they might be able to offer.
But for now, the CEB is concentrating on completing raising funds for its two buildings which are scheduled to be occupied in a few short years.
“When Charley Cawley [then CEO of MBNA] built the Bracebridge complex,” du Pont said, “it was about a million square feet of space. When the Bridge is completed, half of that million square feet will be devoted to education.”
