As construction increases on campus and throughout downtown Johnson City, students will see more of a connection between the two places.

Brian Noland, president of ETSU, and Bob Cantler, president and CEO of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce, discussed several ways that students and the downtown community will get to connect in the coming year. One of the largest connectors between campus and downtown proper is West Walnut St.

“I’m hoping that as West Walnut [St.] is complete, we’ll have more students walking and biking from campus to the amenities in downtown Johnson City and really giving us the environment that I know our community has strived for, for so long,” said Noland.

Photo of construction on West Walnut Street. (Gabriella Collins/East Tennessean)

Aside from the ongoing construction along West Walnut Street, students have been dealing with ongoing renovation to Burleson Hall and Brown Hall over the past academic year. To accommodate renovations to Burleson and Brown, this fall semester students will have the opportunity to study in the Johnson City Downtown Centre.

“What that will do is, it will put hundreds of students every day in the downtown area, which gives them the opportunity to frequent the shops, the restaurants and everything that we have available to us,” said Noland.

The connection between students on campus and the downtown community has always been strong. Many ETSU graduates have went on to reside in the area and even operate several businesses downtown. Cantler explains that Yee-Haw Brewing would not exist downtown had it not been for the ETSU Quillen College of Medicine.

“The whole reason why Yee-Haw is here is because the developer’s wife was at the med school and they loved the community and when they wanted to start a brewery, this was the location they wanted to have to start that,” said Cantler.

Events and businesses across downtown are what continues to bring students to visit. Most recently, the Office of Leadership and Civic Engagement, Volunteer ETSU, the Young Professionals of Johnson City and other sponsors led the second annual Johnson City Beautification Day. This event allowed the ETSU community and the downtown community to come together and better the shared spaces downtown. Looking ahead, ETSU will continue to collaborate with downtown Johnson City to invite students to be part of their community.

“On April 20, we’ll have another opportunity for our students to connect with the community in a day of service in recognition of a faculty member who was just a true champion for community communications and that was Chris Dula,” said Noland. “We had a Dula Day of Service before COVID kind of brought it to an end, so we’re bringing this day of service back in honor of Chris Dula.”

Photo of Chris Dula.(Contributed/ETSU)

Additionally, the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce will be making more of an impact on students across campus this coming fall. Cantler explained that the Young Professionals of Johnson City will be organizing a chapter of Young Professionals at ETSU.

“We’re excited to see how we can take these 20-somethings [year-olds] and be mentors and partner with young professionals on campus,” said Cantler. “We’re always looking at how we can better partner with the university.”

More opportunities will arise for students at ETSU including more sponsored internship opportunities with local businesses and more career conferences.

“Right now, we have a group of Roan scholars that are going out and meeting with business leaders to ask them what can we do or how do we need to relook at having students in your organizations whether it’s shadowing, interns or apprenticeships,” said Cantler.

As more opportunities arise for students at ETSU, enrollment will continue to increase and the need for more housing will increase in Johnson City. Noland shares that within the next 10 years ETSU will see a new residence hall on campus.

“We want to put that residence hall in a way that continues the connection between campus and the community,” said Noland. “I think as you look at West Walnut Street, the sky’s the limit there and my hope is that as that builds out that it builds out in a new urbanist way with shops along the sidewalks.

If I were to close my eyes 20 years from now and envision what that could look like, it would look like…a beautiful connector form campus to the downtown merchant area proper.”

The Johnson City Chamber of Commerce is aware of the ongoing need for more student housing within Johnson City. Cantler shares that as construction to Burlington Mill, located at 2203 McKinley Road, students will have the opportunity to reside there.

“The Burlington Mill project will bring a lot of apartments,” said Cantler. “It’s probably more apartments for our grad and med students, but, again, that could lessen some of the pressure for finding housing close to campus for our undergrad students.”

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