Alamance Community College president Dr. Ken Ingle (pictured second from the right) describes the climate-controlled server room that will house servers and networking equipment for the community college’s Artificial Intelligence program on the third floor of ACC’s Biotechnology Center of Excellence.
The 7,139-square foot vacant third floor had been left unfinished when ACC opened the $19.4 million, 32,000-square foot Biotechnology Center of Excellence at the northern tip of ACC’s Graham campus, near the intersection of I-85/40 with Jimmie Kerr Road, in the spring of 2023. ACC’s trustees had previously agreed to defer completion of the third floor due to labor and construction cost inflation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Construction of the Biotechnology Center of Excellence was initially financed by proceeds from the $39.6 million bond package that Alamance County voters had approved for ACC in 2018.
ACC’s trustees voted earlier this year to award a $2.2 million contract to Lomax Construction of Guilford County to complete the “third-floor upfit,” as ACC officials have termed the project. The trustees hired ThoughtCraft Architects of Durham in 2025 to design six classrooms, a lab space, data server room, and an instructional space for ACC’s Data Analytics program. Construction of the third-floor upfit is being funded by a grant through the State Capital Infrastructure Fund (SCIF) that the General Assembly previously allocated to the community college as part of the state budget.
ACC became the third community college, out of 58 in North Carolina, to offer a degree and a three-semester certification program in AI in early 2024.
Courses in AI and Data Analytics have continued to be taught elsewhere on ACC’s Graham campus and online while construction on the third floor of the biotech building is underway, according to ACC officials.
Construction is targeted for completion in October and classes will start in the new location in January 2027, Ingle told The Alamance News Monday night.
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