The mid-20^th century Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital building represents the culmination of the efforts of Columbia’s Black residents to establish modern healthcare facilities amidst the Jim Crow system of segregation prevailing in South Carolina before the advent of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The long-anticipated fruit of the 1938 merger of the city’s Waverly and Good Samaritan Hospitals, the present building was completed as a state-of-the-art facility in 1952 and included operating rooms, x-ray equipment, fifty beds, and a nurse training facility.

Despite the hospital’s comprehensive suite of services, operating margins were tight, due to a high debt load and persistently low reimbursement rates for care. In the wake of desegregation, Richland County completed a new, racially-integrated general hospital, which prompted the closure of Good Samaritan-Waverly in 1973.

The shuttered hospital was acquired in 1987 by Allen University, an HBCU founded in 1870 whose main campus is across the street. A succession of plans were considered over the years, and in 2008 the building was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Subsequent to the appointment of President Ernest McNealey, in late 2017, plans began to coalesce around an adaptive re-use for the hospital. Fundraising commenced, but by the end of 2019 a significant gap remained.

In August of 2020, Crescent Growth Capital was hired to provide historic preservation consulting and tax credit arranger services on a contingent fee basis. Crescent authored the Historic Preservation Certification Application for South Carolina State Historic Tax Credits and Federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits, successfully advancing an argument to justify the corner addition proposed for the project by pointing to the mid-block siting of the hospital at the time of its completion.

From a structuring standpoint, as tax credit arranger Crescent sourced $12 million in New Markets Tax Credit allocation authority, combined the resulting subsidy with federal and state historic tax credits, and took advantage of the South Carolina Abandoned Building Tax Credit to bring over $4 million in bottom-line benefit to the project.

In 2023, Allen University inaugurated the Waverly-Clyburn Building, within the original hospital, along with the Boeing Center auditorium, constructed as an addition. Building uses include a home for Allen’s newly-established school of education, for teacher training; a permanent home for the Institute for Civility; a newly-established South Carolina African-American Hall of Fame; and a new home for the university’s seminary.