Alamance Community College has completed $3.4 million in renovations to parts of three existing buildings at its main campus in Graham, the trustees were told at their latest meeting last week.
The renovations to the Gee, Main, and Powell buildings were funded by part of the proceeds from the $39.6 million bond package that area voters approved for ACC in November 2018.
The community college received a certificate of occupancy for the renovated spaces in late December, following an inspection by the State Construction Office, ACC officials said last week. The State Construction Office is responsible for overseeing the planning, design, and construction of major facility projects for North Carolina’s 58 community colleges, public universities and colleges, and state government, ACC officials said last week.
Gee Building library
The renovations to the Gee Building, which opened on ACC’s main campus in late 2005, consist of a complete facelift for the library on the third floor. The renovated library features an open floor plan with LED lighting, an expansion of the computer work stations, individual study “pods,” private study rooms and “multi-use” conference rooms, and new seating and furnishings throughout – as well as a “low sensory room” furnished with bean bag seating, lava lamp-type water features, and other details intended to ease stress. Administrative offices throughout the library were also updated as part of the bond-funded renovations to the Gee Building.
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The new floor plan maximizes the library’s existing square footage while also providing a quiet place to study or conduct research and encouraging students to linger, the way customers do in retail bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, ACC officials told The Alamance News this week during a tour of the renovated facilities.
Main Building
Much of the second floor in the Main Building on ACC’s Carrington-Scott campus – portions of which date back to 1976 – has been updated as part of the $39.6 million bond package for ACC.
The $3.4 million in renovations also included new computer labs, administrative offices, and “multi-use” rooms in the Academic Support Center on the second floor of ACC’s Main Building. The original floor plan was reconfigured and now features a new computer/tutoring lab for one-on-one tutoring; new offices for staff; several conference rooms; and private study rooms that can be reserved by individual students and/or groups, ACC officials told The Alamance News this week.
[Story continues below photos of the renovated Main Building.]
The renovations to the Main Building also included construction of new classrooms in existing space on the second floor, as well as a renovated reception area and offices for the Career and College Promise (CCP) program.
Other common areas in the Main Building, including the snack bar/café on the first floor and student lounge on the second floor, were also recently updated with new flooring, lighting, and furnishings, though those renovations were funded by other sources of revenue such as ACC’s $6.1 million share of proceeds from the $2 billion statewide Connect NC bond package that North Carolina voters had approved in March 2016.
Powell Building
The original renovation plans for the Powell Building, built in 2007, called for an addition that would’ve doubled the facility’s footprint and addressed enrollment growth in the community college’s healthcare programs, based on the vision that ACC’s trustees had outlined prior to passage of the $39.6 million bond package in November 2013.
However, the subsequent inflation in costs for building materials and labor shortages at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic prompted ACC’s leaders to scale back the scope of work for the Powell Building.
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Today, the newly-renovated Powell Building features several new simulation labs to provide students in programs such as nursing with hands-on training in critical care, cardiac care, and obstetrics/gynecology that resembles what they’d experience in a clinical or hospital setting, ACC nursing instructor Shylon Smith told The Alamance News Tuesday morning.
ACC’s trustees had voted in August 2023 to award the construction contract for the renovations to all three buildings (Gee, Main, and Powell) to Central Builders of Mebane, which had submitted the lowest bid.
The $3.4 million bid from Central Builders ultimately came in $738,722 below the original $4.1 million construction budget for renovating the three existing facilities, allowing the savings to be used to replace asbestos tile flooring with luxury vinyl plank flooring that now leads to the newly-renovated spaces inside the Main Building.
