Waubonsee Community College’s
Board of Trustees has endorsed the sequence and timing of
the next four facilities for the Sugar Grove campus that are
a part of Waubonsee’s 2020 College Master Plan.
“The college expects its enrollment to grow from the
current 24,000 students to more than 34,000 over the next
15 years. The 2020 College Master Plan provides a blueprint
for the future of Waubonsee that outlines the facilities necessary
to meet the needs of students now and into the future,”
reports Dr. Christine Sobek, WCC president. “The plan
centers on the construction of six new facilities on the Sugar
Grove campus, remodeling of vacated areas, an expansion of
the downtown Aurora campus, and construction of an extension
site located along the U.S. Route 34 corridor,” she
says.
Phase II of the expansion will include the construction
of a new student center and a classroom building/corporate
training center on the Sugar Grove campus.
The new 72,000 square-foot student center would centralize
the college’s services to students such as registration,
academic counseling, food service, recruitment and retention,
student activities, career services, financial aid, assessment,
and other support functions in a one-stop facility. The building
is slated for goundbreaking in May 2005, at an estimated cost
of $12,050,000.
A classroom building/corporate training center is planned
for the north side of the Sugar Grove campus. The 58,000 square-foot
center will provide expanded space for general classrooms
and dedicated spaces for corporate and community training.
It is expected to cost $9,450,000.
“A new classroom and corporate training facility is
necessary to meet the requirements of businesses and industries
that must train and re-train their workforce. The building
would also house general classrooms for college-level credit
courses,” explains Sobek. “We envision that this
building would be designed to accommodate classroom spaces
of varying sizes and have facilities to meet different programming
needs like conference rooms and large-scale training/seminar
rooms,” she adds. The college expects to begin construction
of this facility in November 2005.
Phase III of Waubonsee’s 2020 College Master Plan
calls for an addition to the existing Henning Academic Computing
Center and an expansion of Erickson Hall to accommodate additional
space for sports, athletic and fitness programs.
“The 32,000 square-foot Henning expansion will house
additional classrooms and lab space to support all areas of
academic computing,” outlines Sobek.
The building expansion also will provide space for additional
computer training in the areas of continuing professional
education and customized training for business and industry.
Groundbreaking for the Henning expansion is expected in November
2006, at an estimated cost of $6,360,000.
Waubonsee plans to begin construction in early 2007 for
the 20,000 square-foot expansion to Erickson Hall to meet
additional space needs for sports, athletic and fitness activities.
“This new space will help us meet a high demand for
college-level health, wellness and physical education courses,
as well as provide training and practice space for the college’s
14 intercollegiate athletic teams and intramural programs,”
explains Sobek. The addition is budgeted at $2,750,000.
In January 2003 the Waubonsee board of trustees endorsed
Phase I of the 2020 College Master Plan. That phase focuses
on four projects: a science building and a maintenance building
on the Sugar Grove campus; an Aurora Campus site expansion;
and a site for a new Southwest Corridor Extension Center.
According to Sobek, several criteria were used to prioritize
each construction phase of the 2020 College Master Plan.
The criteria include current and growing student enrollment
demand versus existing facility capacity; facility condition;
ability to create re-useable space once the current use is
vacated; higher quality educational programs and services;
current status of facilities on the state’s higher education
capital buildings list; cascade effect of a new facility;
infrastructure needs of a new building; centralization of
services; and increased cost of operations.
The 2020 College Master Plan is being financed by $67 million
in bond funds and a five-cent increase in the college’s
operations and maintenance tax levy to operate all campus
facilities. |
