Alamance Community College’s trustees have hired an architectural firm in Durham to design classroom spaces on the third floor of ACC’s Biotechnology Center of Excellence, which opened in the spring of 2023.
The trustees voted 8-0 during their latest meeting to award the contract to ThoughtCraft Architects of Durham to design classrooms for ACC’s newly-launched Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics programs.
Construction of the $19.4 million, 32,000-square foot Biotechnology Center of Excellence, which is located at the northern tip of ACC’s Graham campus and near the intersection of I-85/40 with Jimmie Kerr Road, was funded by proceeds from the $39.6 million bond package that voters approved for the community college in November 2018.
ACC’s trustees later agreed to defer completion of the third floor of the Biotech Center due to cost overruns during construction, attributed at the time to escalation in labor and construction materials due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The $2.5 million budget for the third floor upfit of the Biotech Center of Excellence will be funded by a grant through the State Capital Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) that the General Assembly established several years ago, based on information that was provided for the trustees’ discussion.
No cost for the contract with ThoughtCraft was given, as state law requires contracts for architectural, engineering, and similar services to be awarded on the basis of qualifications, rather than cost. Instead, the State Construction Office will ultimately negotiate the final cost for the design contract, ACC’s trustees were told last week.
Earlier this month, the trustees’ building and grounds committee heard presentations by three architectural firms, including the ClarkNexsen architectural firm in Raleigh that designed the Biotech Center of Excellence, ACC trustee and committee chairman Bill Gomory told his fellow trustees last week.
ClarkNexsen and ThoughtCraft tied for the top spot on a scoring matrix used to evaluate all three firms’ proposals, but the committee ultimately recommended awarding the contract to the Durham firm due to its previous experience with similar projects, Gomory said. “We felt they were much more comfortable in giving us a project in our scope and budget than we thought ClarkNexsen was,” he recalled during his update to the trustees.
ACC’s trustees subsequently voted 8-0 to award the contract to ThoughtCraft Architects. Trustees Pete Glidewell and Sylvia Munoz were absent.
As of last week’s trustee meeting, neither the General Assembly nor Alamance County’s commissioners had appointed a replacement to complete the remaining terms of former trustees Mark Gordon and Dr. Charles K. Scott, who resigned from ACC’s board in October and November 2024, respectively; their terms run through June 30, 2026.
Meanwhile, the construction of another new facility funded by the 2018 bond package, ACC’s $19.9 million public safety training center under construction in Green Level, is currently targeted for completion later this spring, Gomory told the trustees last week.
