CHARLESTON, SC (WCBD) – The Citadel is planning to tear down Capers Hall, a building that is nearly 70 years old. Proposed plans to replace it with a new facility that will benefit the cadets and local community continue to move forward.

John Dorrian, who is the Vice President of Communications and Marketing with the college, says the current building is “well past it’s design life and it doesn’t meet the needs of our cadet community.”

Capers Hall was originally constructed in 1951 and has become undersized and severely outdated but is an important academic building on the campus.

Dorrian says “about 75% of our cadets take classes in this building, it’s a really important academic building to campus life.”

One of the biggest reasons for the new building is because the current Capers Hall no longer meets safety standard codes.

The Board of Architecture Review (BAR) will meet tonight in Capers Hall to review and discuss new renderings for the planned building that is expected to cost roughly $68 million dollars.

“We’ve raised a lot of that money ourselves through the generosity of our donors, we’ve also worked with the state and got some state appropriations.”

John Dorrian, Vice President of Communications and Marketing, The Citadel

Designs for the new hall include a three story, C-shaped building that will replace the current L-shaped building. In addition to state of the art classrooms, the new building will house a courtyard and a 250-seat auditorium.

Dorrian says the new building will “have the same look and feel on the exterior of the building but it’s going to have the capabilities for us to have modern teaching methods.”

The college plans to begin taking the current building down sometime after August of 2020 and anticipates opening the new facility in January of 2023.