Trevecca Nazarene University completed the purchase of 4.48 acres from Volunteer Express, which is part of the Quickway Distribution Services family of companies. The university and Quickway’s real estate holding company, McDaver Properties, announced the sale of the property this morning.

Volunteer Express has occupied the facility at 502 Lester Avenue for about 30 years.

Trevecca will also take possession of an additional 2-acre plot that sits across the street from the main Volunteer Express facility. The company is donating this property to the university.

The university has long-planned to purchase the land, which backs up to two residence halls and the baseball field. Decades ago, Volunteer’s then-owners promised to sell the plot to Trevecca should the company ever relocate. A. B. Mackey, previous president of Trevecca, was set to purchase the land in 1943, but the Adams Administration Building caught fire that day, and the university needed to use the funds to rebuild it. Trevecca had another opportunity in 1984, but it wasn’t the right time financially either.

When Quickway purchased Volunteer five years ago, Quickway CEO Bill Prevost learned of the promise — and decided to keep it.

“Shortly after purchasing Volunteer Express, I learned of Trevecca’s long desire to expand down Lester Avenue, and I am glad that today we are part of making that dream come true,” Prevost said. “It has been a great pleasure for me and my wife to develop a friendship with Dan [Boone, Trevecca’s president] and David [Caldwell] and their wives, and to know, understand and appreciate the impact this transaction will have on Trevecca Nazarene University’s future."

Prevost said that “out profound respect for Trevecca’s educational mission” and stewardship of the university’s leadership, his company would also donate the land and building of Volunteer’s former maintenance facility. That 2-acre property is on Woodycrest Avenue and sits across the street from the Lester Avenue property Trevecca has purchased. The university plans to use it as an endowment property.

“When I came to Trevecca as a student in 1980, the iniversity was hoping to purchase the Volunteer property,” said Caldwell, Trevecca’s executive vice president for finance and administration. “Working with Bill Prevost and Ken Hickman [president of Volunteer Express] over the past few years to arrange for this decades-long dream to become reality has been a fulfilling pleasure and will put an end to the most-asked question I’ve had since I’ve been back.”

Volunteer plans to move the trucking company’s operations two blocks away, to a property at 1116 Polk Avenue. The company will dedicate their new facility on December 9. Boone and Caldwell will be on hand at that event to share Trevecca’s vision for the Lester Avenue property with Volunteer officials and employees.

The newly purchased property will become the home of a new music building, an integral component of Trevecca’s new School of Music and Worship Arts, announced in November. The new school will bring the music department, Center for Worship Arts, and National Praise and Worship Institute under one umbrella, starting January 1.

The university is in the quiet phase of a comprehensive campaign that includes raising funds for the School of Music and Worship Arts’ new home, as well as other planned campus projects. 

Trevecca will incorporate existing buildings on the Volunteer Trucking property into the design of the music building. According to Caldwell, repurposing and reconfiguring the existing buildings will help to minimize cost while also creating an attractive, much-needed space for Trevecca’s growing music-related programs.

The repurposed building will include expanded music classrooms and practice spaces, as well as faculty offices. In addition, the new space is also expected to house a “black box” theater. This simple, unadorned performance space will offer great flexibility in staging a variety of productions or performances. The plans for the black box theater also include space for a soundboard, making it possible to use the new theater to teach production classes.

Those interested in more information about the project and to how to support it should contact Peg Cooning, Trevecca’s vice president for external relations, at pcooning@trevecca.edu.

--Trevecca Nazarene University