HGTC planning major expansion of culinary arts program

Horry-Georgetown Technical College is working on a major expansion of its culinary arts program that should see the number of students double to 300 in three years and total enrollment jump to as many as 450 when factoring in continuing education students.

The expansion will include the construction of a new, two-story, 38,000-square-foot building on the college’s Grand Strand campus to house new classrooms, kitchens, a bakery, two restaurants, laboratories and a demonstration amphitheater that will seat up to 60 people, said Tom Maeser, the college’s executive vice president for continuing education.

“With 1,500 restaurants on the Grand Strand,” Maeser said, “culinary has become a major industry.”

The expansion is getting underway just as the college is completing work on a three-year expansion of its allied health program. That initiative saw the college renovate the hospital at the former Myrtle Beach Air Base into a classroom building to house studies in areas such as radiology, nursing, medical imaging, lab testing and dental science.

A dental clinic in the Speir Building will be completed in the spring.

Enrollment in health sciences classes has risen by at least 1,500 students since that expansion began, according to college figures.

The culinary arts expansion is happening at a time when there are major new movements in restaurant foodservice, said James Clark, executive chef of Grande Dunes, and the college initiative will be able to take advantage of the trends.

New kitchens in the new building will have the space where students can perfect their farm-to-table skills using fresh, local produce and explore molecular gastronomy, which James described as using safe chemicals to redefine food texture.

The technique, he said, leads diners to focus on their senses of feel and smell as well as taste.

James said the college’s culinary program is already very good. The expansion should make it that much better.

“We’ve got an image already,” Maeser said. “We just need to take it to the next level.”

Maeser said that HGTC expects to double the number of its chef/instructors from four to eight to handle the expected increase in enrollment. He said that the new facilities and new programs could attract students from across the country.

An advisory committee, of which James is a member, has been formed to help guide the development. Maeser said the new building should cost around $10 million to build, with the money coming from revenue brought in by a special 1-cent sales tax to benefit education in Horry County. The HGTC Foundation has been given the task of raising an additional $2 million to furnish the building.

Architectural drawings for the new facility should be complete relatively soon, Maeser said, and then there will be a six-month process of getting state approval for the expansion and a signed contract for construction.

The graduates will emerge from the program, as they do now, into an array of restaurants that span the range from diners and moms-and-pops to fine dining.

The school places 90 percent to 92 percent of its graduates in jobs, said Tom Mullaly, HGTC Culinary Arts department chairman. Most of those jobs are in Grand Strand restaurants, he said. Five to six years ago, he said the program had 50 to 60 students. Now there are about 165, he said.

James said he believes area restaurants can continue to absorb graduates as enrollment rises.

“We have to meet the needs of the whole community,” Maeser said, “so we have to be pretty broad based.”