Renovations, expansions in the works
BUTLER TWP — With more than 5,500 students at its main Butler Township campus and four satellite facilities last school year, Butler County Community College continues to be an important educational presence in the county and the region.
The college will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its charter next year. That will come at a time when several capital projects are under way. Many of the improvements have been defined in the college's strategic plan for years.
Between BC3's new Brockway facility that opened in November, thanks to a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Education, renovations at the John A. Beck Jr. Library, a $4.7 million project half-funded from the state that's now under way, as well as upcoming sign upgrades and Children's Creative Learning Center renovations and expansions, the college is in a great position.
“There's an intersection here of money becoming available from the commonwealth, fundraising, decisions we have made over the years to increase revenues to save monies, and this intersection is now,” said Nick Neupauer, BC3 president. “We've always said that our library is our first domino to fall, and that domino is falling right now.”
The library on the BC3 campus, complete with its original orange carpeting from the 1970s, has been in need of an update for years, if not decades.
BC3 leaders have been trying to get funding to renovate the library for more than 15 years.
With construction beginning this fall, the library windows will be replaced with larger ones, electrical outlets will be added to accommodate students' needs with laptops and cell phones, and more computers will be added. The library's entrance will be moving to the center of campus instead of the back.
The library will have a new cafe and outdoor seating. Its 60,000-book collection will be trimmed.
“This will be much more technology oriented while also being a more welcoming place for students to study,” said Brian Opitz, BC3 director of operations.
Stantec in Butler will be completing the renovations. The facelift is projected to be finished by December 2015.
Additional campus construction to begin this year includes a state-of-the-art creative learning center and playground for the Children's Creative Learning Center on campus.
Since 2009, after a tree fell on Armstrong Lodge, the original location of the learning center, the program has been housed in what was previously the campus bookstore. While the current space has been accommodating, it is smaller than the previous location.
After a study was done, it was determined that expanding that building would be most efficient and cost-effective for the program. The expansion will kick off with the construction of a $100,000 outdoor learning center playground, breaking ground next month.
While the playground plans are still being finalized, the space will have a gardening area, a building area, a nature art and sand area, and a music and movement area with wind chimes, among other components.
“It's not your typical monkey bars and seesaws,” Neupauer said.
“It's an outdoor classroom,” Opitz added.
Within the next few years, the learning center will be expanded into a 7,500-square-foot space, onto Old Plank Road property the school recently acquired.
But because of the state funding going for the library, the learning center project has been pushed back. The new facility could be done as soon as the 2015-16 school year, but Opitz said that's not for certain yet.That expansion will include renovations in the current space, a new teachers' lounge, and more classroom and storage space, at a cost of about $1.2 million. Also, a back entrance just for the program that will extend onto the Old Plank Road property will cost an additional $1 million.“And with that, we probably got four and a half acres of undeveloped area,” Opitz said. “So along with the CCLC expansion, we're including a new what we call back entrance to campus, off Old Plank Road. So that's the other half of this road: a new road system drop-off to the CCLC.”The school bought the six-acre Old Plank Road property adjacent to campus two years ago.In a potentially major change, the college is considering building campus housing on the property. BC3 officials issued a feasibility study and are continuing to consider whether to build a student housing complex with up to 200 beds.Only one other community college in the state, Northampton Community College, has campus housing.“We're studying it at great length,” Neupauer said.Other improvements have recently been made across campus, including upgrades of indoor and outdoor locks.“Our classroom lock sets can uniformly lock down immediately in the event that we'd have to do that. And we've got a whole program in place for any type of emergency response,” Opitz said.“Safety is probably the number one positive thing we got out of that.“Second thing is ADA accessibility. Codes of 40 to 50 years ago weren't the same as they are now. And so now, all of our doors are ADA accessible.“And so you got safety, accessibility, you got energy efficiency, and, frankly, just general aesthetics. They just flat out look better. It's a big improvement.”Neupauer pointed out all these projects are not that sudden. Most have been in the planning stages for years and are just now being done. He said a lot of these projects can go forward because of solid financial planning and investing.“Tightening our belts with cost cutting and savings is a big one ... We've done that before everyone else started doing it,” Neupauer said.“We take great pride in the fact that a lot of these battles, we've already fought. So now, when there are institutions that are laying off and cutting, we're in a position where we are being aggressive and going forward. So all of that pain is basically gain.“This is the time to strike, and that's exactly what we're doing.”
<B>Address: </B>107 College Drive<B>Website: </B>www.bc3.edu<B>President: </B>Nick Neupauer<B>Employees: </B>1,036 full-time, 223 part-time faculty members at main campus and four satellite facilities<B>Mission statement: </B>“BC3 is dedicated to providing affordable and accessible education, training and enrichment opportunities responsive to the needs of the communities we serve. The college is committed to fostering a supportive, student-centered environment that values integrity, diversity and excellence.
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