Five months after the University put its original plot up for sale, the USC Peace Garden will plant new roots at Kerckhoff Hall’s lawn.

The update came in a briefing with campus media Wednesday with Mick Dalrymple, USC’s chief sustainability officer, and Julie McLaughlin Gray, associate chair for academic, faculty, and student affairs in the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. 

Gray said they aim to open the new location in the spring. The garden will be overseen by Chan and the Office of Sustainability and designed with input from students, faculty and community members, she said.

On May 28, project coordinator and Chan associate professor Camille Dieterle announced to Peace Garden volunteers that USC was selling the Peace Garden lot, and the garden itself would be restarted at a new location. A Change.org petition created on June 4 garnered 1,363 signatures by the time of publication. 

Peace Garden volunteer and senior Anya Jiménez said she viewed the garden as a space that offered a real connection to its surrounding neighborhood and was concerned that USC’s ties to South Central would weaken its connection to South Central. 

“When we’re looking at USC, we’re looking at a legacy of displacement and the way that USC develops into South Central without engagement or interaction even with the local community,” said Jiménez, who is majoring in writing for screen and television. “The Peace Garden is one of the only direct connections that USC has to the outside community.”

A survey released by the University on Sept. 23 found that having the new Peace Garden on campus was a top priority for a majority of respondents; the third highest priority was having the garden “near campus.”

Kerckhoff Hall is a 17-minute walk from University Park Campus — the old lot resided two blocks north of UPC. 

The new location provides a 4,500-square-foot lot, less than half the original Peace Garden’s approximately 10,000 square feet of space, although it shared the space with an abandoned house and shed. Kerckhoff Hall is the larger of the two proposed locations for the Peace Garden. The alternative, the Jefferson Building quad, is on campus but offers 1,200 square feet.

Gray said the University chose Kerckhoff Hall because the location offered additional space and was accessible to both the USC and surrounding communities. Local residents made up 6.9% of survey responses. 

“[The new location] allows for community engagement, and this was something that was important to a lot of the stakeholders, that people in the community could access it easily,” Gray said. “We hope to continue a lot of our former activities, which included providing opportunities for people to connect nature to their daily lives.”

Dalrymple said the survey revealed shade and trees to be a high priority for respondents: “sunlight, shade & space” was the second most desired attribute of the new location, and “shade” was the most desired feature of the new garden. For respondents who listed trees as a priority, “shade-producing” was the third-most desired trait, below “SoCal native” and “drought tolerant.” 

While gardening will remain the new Peace Garden’s main priority, Dalrymple said the new location will also promote wellness. The art displays, performances and experimental learning that characterized the original location will continue, he said.