Friends helped Campbell law school find home

Campbell's law school will move from Buies Creek to downtown Raleigh by the fall of 2009

RALEIGH -- When a well-known philanthropist decides to sell a downtown Raleigh building he had no intention of selling, chances are there's more than money at work.

Sure enough, the back story to Campbell University's official announcement Thursday that it is moving its law school from rural Harnett County to 225 Hillsborough St. is as much about values as it is price.

"As Barney would say to Andy, going to Raleigh is big," Dr. Jerry Wallace, Campbell's president, said during a news conference Thursday in front of the home of the N.C. Supreme Court.

The origins of the deal date to March 2005, five months before Campbell officials formally began looking to move the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law from Buies Creek to Raleigh.

That month, Variety Realty bought the 107,000-square-foot brick building known as Hillsborough Place for $11.125 million. Variety is owned by Art Pope, a powerful patron of the political right in North Carolina and a strong supporter of Campbell.

Campbell's convocation center is named in honor of graduate John W. Pope Jr., Art's brother, and the Pope family has given generously to the business school and law school over the years.

The Pope family bought Hillsborough Place as a long-term investment, however, and had no intention of selling it so soon.

"When we came to Raleigh in the latter part of 2004, we saw that commercial real estate in downtown Raleigh is something the company should be looking at," said Phil Pope, Art Pope's cousin and a senior vice president with Variety, who represented the family at the news conference.

Although the building was an investment, it quickly became the center of the Pope political machine with a roster of tenants that includes the legislative monitoring, political and legal arms of the organization: The John William Pope Civitas Institute, the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law and Americans for Prosperity, respectively.

Law firms also set up shop inside Hillsborough Place, and the building was 89 percent occupied at the end of June, according to a Highwoods Properties market survey.

Campbell officials, meanwhile, were busy looking for potential sites in downtown that would meet the needs of the 350-student law school. With the help of Adrienne Cole, director of Raleigh Economic Development for the city's chamber of commerce, the university looked at several locations, including the Wachovia Capitol Center tower on Fayetteville Street.

Mayor Charles Meeker said the city offered Campbell no financial incentives to relocate, other than promising to consider giving students legal internships in the city attorney's office and possibly improving the streetscape in front of whatever building the university purchased.

Hillsborough Place entered the discussion only in the last few months, after NAI Carolantic Realty owner Steve Stroud called Art Pope, a longtime friend, on Campbell's behalf.

Pope's initial response offered a glimmer of hope.

"I want you to know this building is not for sale, but for Campbell University we will consider it possibly for sale," Pope told Stroud.

From that, a deal was hashed out and approved unanimously by Campbell's board of trustees this week. The sale of the building won't be completed until late February or early March, though Campbell officials say they will divulge the sale price in the coming weeks.

"Art saw the importance of Campbell law school coming to downtown Raleigh," Phil Pope said. "It was the civic thing to do."

The sale also fits neatly into Raleigh's revitalization plans for downtown, and specifically Hillsborough Street. The city wants the east end of Hillsborough to become an extension of Fayetteville Street, with high-rise buildings providing a more seamless transition from downtown Raleigh to the Glenwood South entertainment district.

Two hotel towers are already planned for that end of Hillsborough, and the law school, which is expected to open in the fall of 2009, will deliver a steady stream of young people to downtown.

"Universities tend not to go out of business," notes Mitchell Silver, Raleigh's planning director.

Melissa Essary, the dean of Campbell's law school, said the school's relocation to downtown Raleigh was never in doubt. It was just a matter of figuring out where.

"This was a perfect fit," she said. "This is the right place for us."