A rendering of the new Harrison Education Center in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood

If William J. Harrison were still alive, today would have been his 74th birthday.

Today also happened to be the ground-breaking ceremony for St. Louis Community College’s new Harrison Education Center, a 31,000-square-foot facility in north St. Louis that is named after him.

The connection between Harrison’s birthday and the ground breaking was actually a lucky coincidence, said Michael McMillan, the city’s license collector and the M.C. of the event.

McMillan said that college and community leaders had trouble finding a date for the ceremony that was agreeable to all the parties. A number of dates were suggested, and June 12th happened to work. But event organizers didn’t realize until earlier this week that the chosen date also was Harrison’s birthday.

Harrison was the associate dean of academic support and continuing education at the Forest park campus and the founder of St. Paul Saturdays, a leadership program for young black males. He was also one of the forces who pushed the college to open an outreach center in the city’s north side.

But he died of a heart attack two months before the Harrison Education Center was first dedicated in 1994. The center was located then at the former Julia Davis library at 4666 Natural Bridge. But the college has wanted to move it into a bigger space for a long time now.

McMillan said that building a new center has been in the works for 15 years. But as I chronicled in today’s Post-Dispatch story, there were a number of hiccups and hurdles along the way.

Carla Chance, the college system’s vice chancellor for finance and business services, gave me a little more of the background on the project before the ceremony. She said that folks with the JeffVanderLou initiative had encouraged the college to build on the chosen location at 3140 Cass Avenue back in 2003 or 2004. One of the draws was that it is directly across the street from Vashon High School.

But opening the fourth campus in Wildwood was the college’s first building priority. The college also tried to get state funding for the Harrison center — to no avail. And then there was the failed tax referendum in 2006.

As for the chosen site, there were about 4 or 5 older houses in poor condition on the site. A couple of the houses were occupied. Chance said those owners happily sold the houses to the college. But in the other cases where the houses were vacant, she said the college had a very difficult time locating the owners. So that slowed down the process.

The college bought the rest of the plots on the site from the city, which held them.

In total, Chance said the college bought all 20 plots of land from the city and private owners for less than $300,000. That is not included in the $10.5 million price tag for the new building.

Robert Nelson, president of the board of trustees and former basketball coach of the Forest Park campus, noted that the college center’s new location across from Vashon High School is fitting because he often recruited players from the high school for his team.

Marlene Davis, alderwoman of the 19th ward, said the JeffVanderLou neighborhood has been known for producing some “interesting people.” But with the new center, she said she hopes that more of the area’s residents will go straight from high school to community college. And then they can transfer to one of the nearby four-year colleges down the street, she said.

Family Court Judge Jimmie Edwards said there is an obvious link between education and crime. He said that many juveniles end up in his courtroom because they are not educated. So he is starting a nearby school to educate the city schools’ most difficult students.

“I hope they will dream to one day come here to Harrison Education Center,” he said.

The Grade is the St. Louis region’s premier blog on education and child welfare. To read other recent posts, go to www.stltoday.com/thegrade.