Continuing Education

Charlotte-area Institutions Pledging to Stay Active with Major Projects

While construction projects are drying up in the private commercial sector, long-term expansion plans are moving forward at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Central Piedmont Community College.

By Bea Quirk

Everyone is predicting rough times for the Charlotte-area construction industry over the next few years, but there is one shining star: higher education.

Photo courtesy UNC-Charlotte; photo by Wade Bruton

While the pace at the schools may slow down from what was initially anticipated due to decreased funding and donations, officials from both institutions say major projects will continue for several more years.

UNC Charlotte

UNCC is currently the fourth largest campus in the 16-campus state university system with 23,000 students. Its 2020 master plan now being developed calls for enrollment to grow to 35,000.

“The time frame will depend on funding and growth of the area, but we know we will need several million square feet of additional space,” says Phil Jones, associate vice chancellor for facilities. “We’re going on the supposition it will all get built, just not as soon as we’d like.”

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The 910-acre campus north of Uptown is about 60% built out. The master plan doesn’t site specific buildings but designates certain areas for particular purposes and identifies the infrastructure these facilities will require.

While the master plan focuses on long-term plans, the college’s facilities department is juggling several projects that are either in progress or about to begin.

The largest of these projects—the largest ever built on the campus—is the $65-million, 196,000-sq-ft student union. It features a three-story grand rotunda and a food court and dining room with seating for 800.

There also is a 210-seat movie theater and a ballroom, meeting rooms and space for campus organizations. The project includes a 1,000-car parking deck west of the site that opened in late 2007. The student union building is scheduled for an August opening.

Because so many students have cars on campus, connecting the deck to the student union was essential. So the design includes an elevated walkway from the parking deck to the first floor of the union. There will also be a 300-ft-long timber bridge on the north side of the site to physically connect with two future residence halls now in the design stage.

Work on the student union dates back to 1997 when efforts began to expand the current facility, originally built in 1962 and expanded in 1976 when there were just over 8,000 students. Boston-based Sasaki Associates and Charlotte-based FWA Group started the design work in 2003.

Balfour Beatty came on board as construction manager at risk in September 2006.

Also set for an August opening is the $35-million, 100,000-sq-ft bioinformatics building on UNCC’s research campus, an area designated for high-tech research programs. Charlotte-based Rodgers Builders is the general contractor.

Because commodity prices increased so much after the July 2007 start, budget constraints will mean that only two-thirds of the building will be initially finished. “The top floor will be a white box,” says John Fessler, UNC Charlotte director of capital projects. “We’ll complete it as funds become available from the state or private donors and as programs are implemented.”

The fourth building planned for the research campus, the planning, outreach and advanced learning facility, has so far only received partial funding for the design stage. A planned science building has received $2.5 million for preplanning, but Fessler is still waiting for monies for design and construction.

“We’re building for 50 years out, so we’ll push through the downtimes and continue to progress,” Fessler says.

UNCC’s construction program is not limited to the campus. In March, Rodgers will break ground on an Uptown classroom building, a $50.6-million, 135,000-sq-ft project.

UNCC is growing in other ways as well. The board of trustees voted in September to add football to its athletic program. Within two months, 5,000 permanent seat licenses were sold to raise an initial $5 million.

The school is looking to raise $45 million from the private sector for a stadium of at least 12,000 seats, about 50,000 sq ft of office and support space, and two practice fields. Only the general location has been determined. Current plans call for construction to begin in summer 2011 with the first game played in fall 2013.

Central Piedmont Community College

CPCC administrators have been growing their six-campus system for the last decade with state and county funding and successful bond packages approved by Mecklenburg County voters. Enrollment for the 2007-2008 year, now at about 70,000, increased an estimated 12% from the preceding year, and school officials expect it to increase further.

“We have an open-door policy, and when the economy isn’t doing well, our enrollment goes up,” says Maha Gingrich, CPCC assistant to the executive vice president.

The biggest projects now under way are on the Central Campus, located just outside Uptown Charlotte. The 60,000-sq-ft, 30-year-old Belk Building, devoted to allied health fields, is undergoing a renovation in which four of the five floors will be gutted and redone. The building also will be expanded by 100,000 sq ft.

The $27 million projects are targeted for completion in 2010. Rodgers Builders is overseeing the job, and 25 other contractors hold prime contracts.

Nearby, ground was broken in September on a $23-million, 30,000-sq-ft culinary arts building. Rodgers is also overseeing this project, and the facility, which features several commercial kitchens, is set to open in September.

Concurrent with these projects, the city of Charlotte has been installing track for its planned streetcar line along Elizabeth Avenue, the campus’s main thoroughfare.  The $9-million project is set to be finished late this spring.

Gingrich says the campus, which opened in 1963, has “several more years of building” planned, including a classroom building renovation, new parking deck, new center for automotive technology and conversion of the old culinary arts building into a communications training facility with a TV studio.

CPCC could go to voters with a bond package in November, but no decision has yet been made.

Elsewhere Around Charlotte

The uncertainty of funding is also impacting private construction. At the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, Castle & Cooke is “finding it more difficult to get loans, so things are taking longer than anticipated,” says Tom Sanctis, vice president of commercial construction.

The company, owned by billionaire David Murdock, is building facilities at the biotechnology research center for area colleges. The universities will rent them for 20 years, and then Murdock will donate them to the state. 

A 125,000-sq-ft building for UNC Chapel Hill’s Nutrition Research Institute and a 100,000-sq-ft structure for North Carolina State University’s Plants for Human Health Institute opened in the fall. Later this year, a 62,000-sq-ft classroom building for Rowan-Cabarrus Community College will open. Turner Construction of Charlotte is the builder for all of these facilities.