Dee Brown has his hands on many developments across Pine Bluff, but his reflection on the work leading to Friday’s grand opening of Southeast Arkansas College’s first housing complex brought him to tears.
“This deal impacts the world,” the Memphis-based founder of The P3 Group said during a ceremonial ribbon cutting. “It’s bigger than Pine Bluff, than Jefferson County. We’re setting people up for rewards they may otherwise never see. When you put politics aside, it represents a return to humanity to what’s good and what’s right.”
The Reef, as it’s affectionately known in honor of the campus’ Sharks identity, is the former Davis Life Care Center at 6811 S. Hazel St., across from SEARK’s Relyance Bank Athletic Complex. It was transformed from the former nursing home to a state-of-the-art living quarters of 175 beds complete with services from Great Western Dining and a commons that greets visitors and draws residents together.
“I think it really boils down to the fact that it’s going to impact so many young people’s lives,” Brown said. “When you think about the challenges that so many individuals from impoverished communities and communities of color have in terms of accessing quality education, housing tends to be a significant barrier. It’s a barrier to them succeeding in college.”
The Reef opened last August. P3 owns and operates the facility but will endow $7.24 million back to the college over the next two decades.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Presently, about 70 student-athletes reside at The Reef, many of them being shuttled 4 miles north to the campus for classes.
“It’s somewhere we can show recruits,” said women’s basketball Coach Sam Waniewski, who also assists the men’s team. “All the bedding and dressers are brand-new. It’s right across from the gym. To be able to show recruits where they come here, wake up, walk right across the street and get a workout in is very enticing and exciting to show them.”
The $5.5-million campus was yet another initiative of outgoing SEARK President Steven Bloomberg, who pointed to members of the men’s basketball team when he addressed why he came up with the idea for The Reef. Just last year, Bloomberg founded the SEARK athletic department.
“We did it for the student-athletes,” Bloomberg said of The Reef, “to give them opportunities they otherwise would have never had.”
One of the basketball players, Tobias Prall of Trenton, N.J., is a residential assistant. He transferred from Bucks County Community College, just across the state line in Pennsylvania.
“I was blessed with a great opportunity from Coach Sam,” Prall said. “I was at a school where we didn’t have any dorms. Basically, I was driving to classes every day. Coming here and having an opportunity to be an RA in new dorms and this being a first-year program, I’m blessed to be in this situation.”
Baseball and softball teams have started play this semester, but the men’s and women’s basketball teams will begin competing in the fall.
Bloomberg reached out to Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson for a $3 million contribution of federal funds to go toward the complex. Robinson and the Quorum Court are honored with a plaque in the commons.
“Dee Brown and Steven Bloomberg are two of the most selfless individuals I know,” Robinson said. “Not one time was it an ‘I’ thing. It was all about what we can do.
“God is not through with us yet. Do not let this be the last dedication or the last thing we think about doing.”
Partners Bank of Helena-West Helena assisted with the financing.
In Prall’s eyes, The Reef is another transformation mechanism for Pine Bluff.
“We’re all from different places. We even have a player from a different country,” he said. “We all have come together, creating our own culture and creating our own swag. For us to be a first-year program, we’ve got to set the tone for the rest of the people after us so they know who we are, so we’ve got to put that foot down the first year.”
