In the summer of 2019, Dutchess Community College announced its plans to open a satellite campus in Fishkill. After facing delays that offset its planned fall 2020 opening, the college held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to announce the official opening on June 10.
“DCC@Fishkill has been built with the purpose and intention of becoming an incubator of tomorrow”™s leaders,” Ellen Gambino, acting president of Dutchess Community College, said at the ceremony.
“It is my sincere hope that this facility, with its superb classrooms and labs, easily accessible location and welcoming and open learning spaces, will provide our students ”” the next generation of pioneers ”” the space and support they are going to need as they marshal the resources of education, technology and human ingenuity to forge new solutions for the market challenges they will face.”
The new campus, nicknamed DCC@Fishkill, will be in a building that was an anchor store at the former site of the Dutchess Mall, at the intersection of Route 9 and Interstate 84.
The facility will be 47,000 square feet, on most of the top floor of the building that once housed the J.W. Mays department store, and more recently, the Dutchess Marketplace flea market. J.W. Mays Inc. still owns the property and was responsible for configuring the interior space to DCC specifications.
The college signed a 15-year lease for the space. The cost of creating the space for the school as well as the amount of the rental agreement was not readily available.
The location was chosen partially because of information from a demographic analysis conducted by the college. The analysis indicated that the new location would serve student populations better than the previous DCC South in Wappingers Falls.
It will serve both traditional students and those starting or returning to college, for degree-oriented, part-time or microcredential coursework. Over 100 courses are to be offered at the site during the fall 2021 semester.
The new facility will be optimized to allow for flexible and collaborative learning, with new computer labs, group study rooms, a library with computer access and seating areas, reconfigurable student lounge areas and new faculty offices that allow for both quiet study and conversation.
Several new, modern classroom styles will be included. A computer classroom in the location was built for cybersecurity and related areas of education, with an internal, independent network.
There is an oversized classroom that can accommodate a lecture of up to 90 students at once, or can be reconfigured to allow for 66 students at table seating.
Twenty more classrooms are designated as “smart classrooms,” with digital equipment and mobile tables to allow classes to customize their setup for the style that works best with the coursework.
Admissions information sessions and tours are scheduled throughout July.
There is 150,000 square feet of rental space still available in the building for retail, dining or other interested businesses.
