The university's new academic center will be a five-story, 145,000-sf facility running along this city's West Trade Street. A new student residence hall will add another 192,000 feet to the plan and offer housing for roughly 650 students. The center was designed by L3SP Ltd., while the residence hall was created by Little Diversified Architectural Consulting. The campus, its first foothold in Charlotte, is set to open in 2004 with an enrollment of 884 students. The Charlotte campus joins the university's other outposts in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Sweden.

In addition to the new buildings' role within the life of the university, the assets will also showcase the university as a part of the Charlotte business landscape, serving as an anchor in the city's $350-million Gateway Development, a mixed-use urban village at the rim of the city center. The project's owners are Cousins Properties and Bank of America.

Included in the development are a 650,000-sf office building at 800 West Trade and a 440,000-foot asset at 900 West Trade. On the multifamily side, four residential assets deliver more than 500 units.