[Johnny Ryall]

the Commercial Appeal | By Juanita Cousins

The Memphis College of Art is enlarging its campus footprint with a $3.3 million student residence hall and three residential properties. An artist rendering of Memphis College of Art's Metz Hall and the new dormitory space.
at 139 N. Barksdale in Midtown. The building will be a mirror image of the Metz Hall residence structure, which was built in 2004. MCA President Jeffrey Nesin said the student residences help "build community among students."

The 24,000-square-foot facility will house 47 students on three floors of apartment-like suites, said the project's lead architect Rebecca Conrad, a partner at Askew Nixon Ferguson. Each suite will have four bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen and laundry amenities. The fourth floor will have a studio, activity space and warming kitchen, which the college can use for special functions. The dorm is scheduled for completion in fall 2010. "It's just helping the campus further its identity on making it more visible in this community," Conrad said.

Last summer, Memphis College of Art spent $250,000 on three Midtown properties: two residential buildings on Tucker Street that now house 10 students, and a Rembert Street property that will eventually provide additional residential housing. Nesin said the independent art and design college set in Overton Park has thrived despite a slumping economy. Its Design for the Future Capital Campaign raised $8 million. The money will be used to increase scholarships, create a technology-driven curriculum, increase the school's endowment and build the Barksdale Street dorm. When Nesin became president in 1991, the campus had no student residential housing. Since then the college has acquired some 20 properties south of Poplar Avenue and built housing for more than 160 students.