TEMPLE, Texas — Temple College hosted a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday, May 1 to kick off construction on four new buildings. The nearly $125-million bond project is scheduled to be completed by the College’s 2026 Centennial celebration.
"There's so much excitement on the Temple College campus right now as we build for the next 100 years," president of Temple College, Christy Ponce, said. "We're so incredibly appreciative to the Temple community to approve the bond. It's just going to help impact so many lives, so many families in our community."
Mayor of Temple, Tim Davis, says these facilities are vital to the continued growth of Central Texas and beyond.
"People ask 'Mayor Davis How are you guys doing that and Temple?' and there's so many pieces to the puzzle," Davis said. "For us to be able to pull this off, it's working."
The first building is the new Temple College building. This four-story structure will be the college's new "front door" and will be located off the loop and 1-14.
It will house a welcome center, student services to enroll, a center with officers and classrooms for university partners to offer programs so that students do not have to relocate to earn an advanced degree. Additionally, there will be a conference facility with 600 people.
The next building is a new campus service center. This will house their physical plant team, the purchasing department and will provide space to house Temple College vehicles.
The new visual arts and workforce building will feature a large art gallery and studio space.
It will also house new workforce programs and have four high-bay labs for manufacturing; computer labs, skills for engineering technology, robotics, corporate training, logistics and a news certification center for students with prior work experience to demonstrate skills for college credit and certifications.
"It's amazing," Adrianna Roger, senior at Temple College, said. "I know we have 3D printers going in, and it'll be all kinds of new technology that we'll have available to us that we didn't have before."
Lastly, the Health Sciences Center will expand spaces to support the growth in nursing and sonography while addressing the shortage in health care working. This building will be in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine and Baylor Scott & White Medical Center.
"I think it's going to progress campus greatly," Rogers said. "It will bring in new people from all over the metroplex, and it's a new opportunity for a lot of people that didn't have this amount of opportunities that they didn't have before."
"Hundreds of faculty, staff, students, employers, community members came out to celebrate this special ribbon cutting celebration because the community knows what it means," Ponce said. "It means that we can serve that many more individuals in our community. Temple College serves thousands of students and this would just help us serve so many more."