Alamance Community College’s trustees held a groundbreaking ceremony Friday to kick off construction of the $6.7 million student services center that will be built along the front of the college’s main campus in Graham, facing Jimmie Kerr Road.
Construction of the forthcoming student services center will be funded by proceeds from the $39.6 million bond package that the county’s voters approved for ACC in November 2018.
The two-story student services center will be built on the site of an existing parking lot between the Powell Building and Literacy Building near the front of ACC’s main campus in Graham. The center will provide a “one-stop” center for student services, housing the admissions, registrar, financial aid, and student payments offices, based on plans that the architectural firm, FWA Group of Charlotte, presented to ACC’s trustees earlier this year.
Upon completion of construction, the main entrance to campus will be rerouted around the student services center to create a “promenade” that provides ACC with a new “front door” image, in keeping with a long-range plan for new construction and expansion of existing facilities that ACC’s trustees adopted in January 2016.
In addition to ACC’s trustees, the local elected officials who attended the groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, October 22, included all three members of the county’s legislative delegation in the General Assembly and Alamance County commissioner chairman John Paisley. The groundbreaking ceremony was also broadcast via a live-stream to maintain social-distancing guidelines due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Speakers included Dr. Thomas Stith, who was installed earlier this year as president of the North Carolina Community College System; and ACC president Dr. Algie Gatewood.
“Today’s celebration is another historic milestone for a dream long in the making,” Gatewood recalled Friday. “This groundbreaking ceremony serves as a reminder of what a community college is all about: Access. Hope. Opportunity. Jobs. Our goal in constructing this building is to make enrolling, receiving help applying for financial aid, and paying for college seamless by removing barriers and providing these services in a single location.”
ACC’s student services center is tentatively scheduled to open for the 2022-23 academic year.
