Year-long construction project ends

It looks and feels like a college campus, but there is one key element missing: students.

That final element should be filled on June 7 with the opening of Summer I classes — just after a May 23 grand opening, said Susan Harris, administrative services officer for the Palestine campus.

For senior nursing student Angela Marx from Palestine the opening comes a little to late, but she’s happy future students can enjoy a shorter trip to class.

“I am so excited for the University, but a little disappointed that I won’t get to attend it since I am graduating,” Marx said. “But architecturally speaking, it was built very well and is lighted with lots of windows.”

The new Palestine campus is located at Loop 256 and Highway 287. The campus accommodates nursing, business, technology and liberal arts students. Photo by Colby Satterfield.

The fundraising for the new campus started in 2006 with the state legislature along with The University of Texas at Tyler Palestine Development council.

In 2007, the Texas legislature authorized $7 million in tuition-revenue bonds for construction of the new building.

The development council began a fundraising campaign Paving the Way raising nearly $2.3 million from area individuals and businesses.

Palestine community leaders Cad Williams, David Bernard, and Phil Jenkins lead the campaign.

The current campus is a 16,500-square-foot, one-story building, offering courses in nursing, business, education, health and kinesiology and history.

Students receive instruction from interactive-video technology. Cameras are set up in the Tyler classrooms while students in Palestine watch as the instructors teach.

The new campus is 17,426 square feet on a 48-acre tract of land.

Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects of Austin designed the building, and the contractor is Hill and Wilkinson General Contractors.

“There is a lot of potential for growth for many, many years,” Harris said.

The building took 18 months to design, and the contractors broke ground in 2009, with construction taking only a year.

The campus has five classrooms, a faculty lounge, student break room, conference room, computer lab and library.

Harris said the new campus should accommodate 300 students with the classes being offered day and night. The campus will be open from 8 a.m. to 9:40 p.m.

The student lounge area located on the second floor looks out into a wooded area behind the campus. Photo by Colby Satterfield.

The new campus resembles the Tyler campus in many ways from the furniture to the laid-back feel inside and outside. With this new image, administrators hope to attract more students from Palestine and area counties.

Getting the ITV transferred over to the new campus is the biggest hurdle yet.

Computers, furniture and library books from the current campus will be moved over to the new campus after the technology is installed.

Classes cannot begin until the IVT is functioning.

A glass dedication wall plaque is going to hang in the main entrance with all the contributors names on it.

“Everyone is excited it is such a beautiful and light place to be,” Harris said. “We have been in the other building for 15 years, and we are ready for a new campus.”

The current campus is going to stay open because it has two nursing labs that can be used, and officials plan to relocate the cyber security program from Tyler to that building.

The cyber security program provides research and first-responder training in computer security and emergency preparedness for the state.

“There is a lot of potential for ideas, and it just depends on what the University’s needs are at that time,” Harris said.