New buildings go up to meet demand
By Garry Boulard, Published September 8, 2009

During a time when commercial and residential building in Oregon is flat and the state has been confronted with a nearly $4 billion budget shortfall, Lane Community College (LCC) in Eugene has broken ground on its first significant new construction in more than a decade.

"This is a very important project for us because it reflects our school’s commitment to answering the health care training needs of our state and region," LCC President Mary Spilde said of the $16 million health and wellness center, which is scheduled for completion by fall 2012.

The center is specifically designed to house LCC’s nursing, emergency medical technology, respiratory care and physical therapist assistant programs, among other study areas, reflecting a growing market demand for more health care professionals.

But the 41,700-square-foot building also reflects LCC’s determination to push ahead with its long-planned capital construction project, despite the national economic downturn.

"This is the first major project that we’ve done that is based on private philanthropy and major gifts," Spilde said. "We received $6.7 million from the state and raised the rest through private philanthropy and foundations."

Most encouraging for LCC was that some of the funds were secured well after the national economy went into a tailspin.

"In the last six months it has been a little more challenging for people to give money, but of the people who did—and several committed themselves to three- and five-year pledges—no one has not made good on their pledge," Spilde said.

Across the country, work is proceeding at Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) in Boston on another major facility dedicated to health care education—the $22 million Health and Wellness Center on the college’s main campus.

"We haven’t put up a new building like this is about 30 years," said Joseph Steffano, director of facilities management and engineering services at BHCC. "We started construction in April 2008 and are right now ahead of schedule."

The building will contain classrooms and laboratories, as well as faculty and administrative offices, a fitness center and gymnasium.

Noting that the early phases of the center’s construction took place just as economists were declaring the country to be in its worst recession in more than a generation, Steffano said the college’s budget for the project hasn’t been busted.

"We’ve been mostly funded by the state on this, with the college putting up about 40 percent. And no one thought of not going ahead with this," Staffano said.

That same buoyant spirit characterizes voters of New Hanover County in southeast North Carolina, who approved a $164 million bond referendum dedicated to building a new addition to Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) in Wilmington.

That ballot took place last November just as the airwaves, newspapers and the Internet were filled with stories of Wall Street stocks taking a dive and predictions of a deep recession.

"The results of that vote really was a great sign of confidence in what our college is doing, even at a time of very bad economic news," said David Hardin, a spokesperson for CFCC. "And in return, we are doing all that we can to support the local economy."

One of the ways in which the college is doing that is with the construction of the $59 million Union Station Building, being built on the site of a former passenger train station that was torn down by the city in the 1970s. The 200,000-square-foot structure, which is scheduled for completion in summer 2012, will house classrooms and laboratories for health science programs, biology courses and college transfer classes, as well as student service and business operations offices.

In addition, work on a new $20 million parking garage is expected to begin next January, along with a humanities/fine arts center and advanced and emergency technology center on the college’s North Campus.

"We’ve really been in a perpetual expansion mode here since the early 1990s, and that has been true no matter what has been going on with the economy," Hardin said.

Also in North Carolina, work is underway on two new buildings at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College (RCCC). The first building will be a part of the North Carolina Research Campus and is designed to be used for the college’s biotechnology degree programs. It is expected to open in fall 2010.

The second building is a two-story, 38,000-square-foot structure at RCCC’s North Campus, which will be used for the continuing education department, GED classes, law enforcement training and computer classes.

"Both buildings are going to greatly enhance our capabilities," said Jeff Lowrance, director of college relations at RCCC.

The construction of both buildings is being jointly funded by the state and Rowan County.

"The economy hit us here in that we had some fairly severe cutbacks to our operating budget," Lowrance said. "But as the construction funds were coming from a different source, our plans for going ahead with the construction of these new buildings have not been affected."

In New Hampshire, where both commercial and residential construction, like most of the rest of New England, has been off since late last year, Great Bay Community College (GBCC) has been engaged in a major renovation project as it moves from its old Stratham Campus location to the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth. The project is expected to cost nearly $10 million and is primarily funded through the state’s capital budget.

"We have had an operating campus all along in Portsmouth," said Liza Proulx, a spokesperson for GBCC. "The campus in Portsmouth was a smaller campus, used primarily for our biotechnology center and computer classes. Now all of our programs will be offered at the single Portsmouth location."

Beginning last summer, GRCC began renovating the tradeport, which was originally designed as a military hospital. The renovation is providing space for new classrooms, laboratories, a library resource center, bookstore, cafeteria and student lounge.

"It’s the kind of move that is really designed around our growth as a college," Proulx said, adding that the revamped building will accommodate up to 4,000 students.

That’s the kind of anticipated growth that community colleges are experiencing across the country, said LCC’s Spilde, who chairs the American Association of Community Colleges’ board of directors. And for that reason, two-year colleges need to broaden their support beyond the traditional source of state funding when contemplating possible future capital improvement projects, she said.

"Universities realized about 15 or 20 years ago that private philanthropy needed to be a part of their financial strategy, and community colleges for the most part came to that realization later," Spilde said.

Planning for any significant capital improvement is a long process, Spilde added.

"You have to put into place a plan and have a compelling case, and then you have to actually ask for the money," she said. "But, if our experience serves as an example, it is also an effort worth trying."