Consultants working for SEH presented a market analysis and a draft community questionnaire to the Richland County Campus Reconfiguration Committee, urging removal of deteriorated campus buildings while preserving athletic and recreation assets and using a community survey to shape housing and reuse plans. "First thing was demolish the unusable campus buildings ... to prepare pads for office development," a SEH representative said, and added that the Wallace Student Center appears to retain some value for reuse.

The consultants summarized demographic trends and told the committee the county faces a continuing need for housing. SEH identified an "additional 109 units of housing annually over the next decade" as the analysis's working estimate. Committee members pressed SEH on what the charts represent — current households versus new demand — and SEH clarified that 2025 numbers reflect current households while 2030 and 2035 are projections; the 109‑unit figure is the report's translation of those data into annual need.

Why it matters: Committee members said they want a clearer breakdown of what types of housing are required (senior, single‑family, townhomes, duplexes, affordable/workforce) because that will shape outreach to developers and funding strategies. SEH told the committee that about half of likely buyers are priced below $250,000, but current construction costs make meeting that price point difficult without subsidies or cost‑reducing approaches.

Committee feedback and survey design: SEH recommended a mix of open‑ended and fixed‑response questions, a short site map and an educational intro to explain that certain recreation facilities (Simons fields, gymnasium) would remain. SEH also proposed ranking questions to surface priorities; some members warned that a positively framed survey could create "false hope" if budget or maintenance realities are not explained. To reach older residents, committee members pressed for paper surveys distributed at senior centers and meal sites; SEH confirmed it can accept and manually enter paper responses and suggested QR‑code bookmarks as an additional distribution tool.

Timing and next steps: SEH asked committee members to deliver comments by Christmas so the team can finalize the questionnaire and publish it early next year for a 2–4 week period. The consultants said that once responses are collected, a basic breakdown of the survey data can be produced in under a week (longer if there are many paper submissions). The committee did not take formal action on the survey in this meeting; members instructed SEH to incorporate feedback and return with a final version for launch.

The committee is expected to revisit the survey questions and SEH's follow‑up analysis in early January.