As Newburgh politicians work on the city”™s financial woes, work on the city”™s new community college continues ”“ on time and on budget.
When SUNY Orange originally sought a location for a new college campus, retired Regal Bag manufacturer William Kaplan made SUNY an offer it couldn”™t refuse ”“ a $10 million capital investment, gratis, if the college was built in the city of Newburgh, where SUNY already had a satellite campus.
To that end, Newburgh was selected, and Kaplan Hall, which will house the college”™s new science and technology departments and laboratories, is well under way. The 85,000-plus-square-foot structure will be ready to open next year, according to Mike Albright, SUNY”™s director of communications.
“We expect to be open for classes in Kaplan Hall for the spring 2011 semester,” said Albright. “Once that building is open and operating, we will vacate the tower building (KeyBank”™s former district headquarters) and begin wholesale renovations in that space.
“Those renovations should be completed in time for us to open the entire campus for the fall 2012 semester. We expect to accommodate double the student capacity we currently serve at that location.”
Plans for the Maple Street building (former site of the Hudson Valley Family Health Center) are still unsettled. “It still houses the Social Security offices and a few other tenants, so no final decisions have been made about what will happen with that space,” said Albright.
When the new campus is built out and refurbished, it will accommodate some 1,100 full-time students, and expects to grow to eventually accommodate 2,000.
SUNY Orange leases space for classrooms in the old YMCA building on Grand Street, across from the new college.
As far as tuition, SUNY Orange is in a holding pattern, said Albright. With legislators still battling it out in Albany, it”™s anyone guess how local school districts or community colleges will fare when the dust settles.
Right now, SUNY Orange is staying focused on the positive ”“ a new college for Newburgh. “There are so many positives in Newburgh,” Richards said in earlier interviews. “I can”™t stress enough that for every dollar we spend on education, twice that amount comes back to the community.”
SUNY Orange has had discussions with Leyland Alliance, the management team selected to build out the 30 acres of city-owned waterfront property. Leyland is hoping to mesh its project with the college”™s new campus and integrate it into the downtown community ”“ making it a hub of learning and culture and adding to the city”™s downtown cachet.
