The University of Mississippi announced yesterday that the South Oxford Center – what was formerly the Baptist Hospital campus before the new facility opened in November 2017 – is now open for business.

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

Ole Miss has been working on the building since March 2018, and over the next few months, several offices will move from their current homes on the main University campus to the new center on South Lamar.

The new center is providing 485,000 square feet to serve the community and educate Ole Miss students, and we have no doubt that with the rapid growth of the University’s student body, faculty and support staff, not to mention the population explosion in Lafayette County and the City of Oxford, that Ole Miss will have no trouble filling up the space.

Sometimes it’s easy to complain and vent our frustration about the problems that come with such a small area growing in such a vigorous way – just drive down University or Jackson Avenues during lunchtime, if you want a test of patience. But even with the squeeze on the county, City and University infrastructure that comes every August, we can’t help but be a little proud that this “little postage stamp of native soil” (thank William Faulker for that one) has so many things that appeal to the masses in such a way.

For all the problems that we currently face as a community, and for all of those yet to come, we can’t deny that Oxford and Lafayette County are one of the best places to live in the southern United States.