Wavy TV 10 – Local News- Taking the next step to transform lives

Demolition well underway at Norfolk DePaul Medical Center campus

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Chuck McPhillips is looking to transform lives in his beloved city of Norfolk.

McPhillips and the Norfolk nonprofit he founded, Next Step to Success, are leveling the property of the former DePaul Medical Center campus to build a new, potentially transformative campus, the St. Vincent de Paul House,’ to serve impoverished teens in Norfolk and provide them with afterschool and summer programs, with the goal of cutting the city’s poverty rate in half within a generation.

Former DePaul Hospital to be leveled under new plan for ‘Next Step to Success’ campus
“Our poverty rate overall in Norfolk is twice the state average,” said attorney Chuck McPhillips, the founder and chairman of the board of the nonprofit Next Step to Success. “Our household incomes are dramatically below our neighboring cities, and it’s all driven by the fact that too many of our people, too many of our great kids are not realizing, they’re not achieving, their God given potential.

He said the plan is a full-scale assault on chronic, intergenerational poverty” in the Mermaid City.

“I love the city. It’s a great city,” McPhillips said, “but we are plagued by the fact that over a quarter of our children, more than one-in-four of our children, are growing up in poverty.“

So, when a private deal to build apartments on the hospital property fell apart, McPhillips was there to pick up the pieces. The nonprofit bought nearly 16 acres on the north side of Kingsley Lane. The land is valued by the city at $31 million, and the Norfolk real estate assessor confirmed the purchase price for the land at $5.7 million.

“We are going to get young folks outside, athletics, gardening, arts, studios, learn disciplines of STEM education to build the future,” McPhillips said.

The plan will eventually call for afterschool and summer programs for 400 students who will walk the campus.

“You’re going to see a campus of beautiful buildings, built in a classical style,” McPhillips said, “so it’ll look like it always belonged in that beautiful neighborhood.”

The new campus is being designed for Norfolk residents who are 13 to 18 years old, with most students from public schools, and all coming from low-income households.

But the construction is not without challenges caused by tariffs.

“Please promise me, Mr. Trump’s tariffs and interest rates won’t slow us down, but right now we’re on schedule to move into the new campus in 2027,” McPhillips said. “… Construction costs have gone up, perhaps due to the tariffs and other factors in the economy, other things you had to deal with in the demolition process, like asbestos and things like that.”

McPhillips said students need to build dreams on the foundation of success.

“If they follow the success sequence, which is graduate from high school, go to work full time, and if you’re going to have children, get married first. That gives you a 96 to 98% probability of escaping or avoiding poverty.”

It should be noted McPhillips’ dream is already alive next door at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church.

“We are already in operation, we’ve got 90 students this summer, and we’ll have our second graduating class,” McPhillips said, “and these folks are raising their sights beyond what they ever thought they could achieve in education, in work and in family.”

And when it is complete, the Next Step to Success will turn this into a beautiful campus.

“You’re going to see a campus of beautiful buildings, of buildings in a classical style,” McPhillips said. “So it’ll look like it always belonged in that beautiful neighborhood.”