Alamance Community College’s trustees voted unanimously during a special meeting Monday night to award a $2.2 million contract to Lomax Construction to finish out the third floor of ACC’s Biotechnology Center of Excellence for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Business Data Analytics programs.
The project is targeted for completion late this summer, in time for the beginning of the 2026-27 academic year.
The trustees held the special meeting via the Zoom online teleconferencing platform on Monday night for the sole purpose of considering the contract for the “third-floor upfit,” as ACC officials have informally termed the project. A separate firm in Durham, ThoughtCraft Architects, was hired last year to design the AI and Business Analytics classroom space for ACC.
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, ACC trustee Bill Gomory told his fellow trustees Monday night.
ACC’s trustees budgeted $2.5 million to finish out the vacant 7,139-square foot third floor of the Biotech building.
The $19.4 million, 32,000-square foot Biotech building opened in the spring of 2023 at the northern tip of ACC’s Graham campus, near the intersection of I-85/40 with Jimmie Kerr Road. Construction of the facility was financed by proceeds from the $39.6 million bond package that voters had approved for ACC in 2018.
ACC’s trustees had previously agreed to defer completion of the third floor of the Biotech Center due to cost overruns attributed to inflation in labor and construction materials amid the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fact that the bid from Lomax Construction came in below the budget for the project means that the contractor will also be able to complete two options – an additional biology lab and offices – on the third floor and still remain within the budget for the project, Gomory said Monday night.
The scope of work for the “third floor upfit” project includes the construction of six classrooms, lab space, a (data) server room, and instructional space for the Data Analytics program, according to ACC associate vice president of administrative services & facilities Tom Hartman.
ACC president Dr. Ken Ingle took the initial steps to establish an AI and business analytics program shortly after beginning his tenure with the community college in February 2024. At the time, ACC was the third community college, out of North Carolina’s 58 community colleges, to offer a degree in AI, along with a three-semester AI certificate program.
In addition to ACC, the Asheville-Buncombe, Cape Fear, Davie-Davidson, Central Piedmont, and Randolph community colleges currently offer two-year degree Associate’s degree programs in AI. Other N.C. community colleges have added individual courses and certificate programs for high school students who are dually-enrolled in Career & College Promise programs, according to the N.C. Community Colleges System.
While most reports about the potential impact of AI have focused on the elimination of existing jobs, ACC officials have said they’re hoping to prepare graduates for good-paying jobs in a fast-growing field.
A 2024 report commissioned by N.C A&T State University projected that the number of jobs in AI to grow three times faster than any other employment sector, with approximately 20,000 jobs in the field expected to be created in North Carolina by 2030. Salaries for entry-level jobs in AI range from $45,000 (on the low end) to more than $100,000 per year, based on job openings currently posted online.
Meanwhile, courses in AI and Data Analytics will continue to be taught elsewhere on the Graham campus and online while the third floor of the Biotech building is being finished out, ACC officials recently confirmed for The Alamance News.
Due to the online meeting format, ACC’s trustees held a roll call vote, in which each person’s name was called out, to approve the contract with Lomax Construction, which is based in Guilford County.
Voting in favor was: the trustees’ chairman Julie Scott Emmons and vice chairman Ken Walker; and trustees Grant Brooks, Jim Butler, Steve Carter, Dr. Roslyn Crisp, Pete Glidewell, Bill Gomory, Tammy Karnes, Sylvia Munoz, and Gen. Blake Williams.
ACC trustee Walter Britt did not participate in the Zoom meeting, which adjourned after 12 minutes.
