Round Rock rolls to finish

The construction time line of Austin Community College's new Round Rock Campus is currently running tight but staying on schedule to open for the fall semester classes of August 23. The construction crews have stayed on schedule with minimal interruptions and within the budget as they work toward finishing each of the five buildings for the Certificate of Occupancy.

The Certificate of Occupancy is a ceremonial part of the construction process when the contractor walks through the completed buildings to ensure the safety and building codes have been met before the employees and students can occupy the structure without the aid of hard hats. Once the building is determined to have met compliance, the contractor then hands the building over to ACC. Each building will receive a Certificate of Occupancy at different times as they are awarded when each building is completed.

However, ACC's project manager Paul Mason mentions that receiving these Certificates of Occupancy doesn't mean the Round Rock faculty and staff will be able to move into their offices just yet. Before the construction team can release the doors to the employees, all the furniture and office equipment must be installed first as well as the equipment and technology needed in the various classrooms such as computers, refrigerators, outlets and fume hoods.

"There's 11 million dollars worth of stuff to put in the building," said Mason. "The biggest challenges are to work around the schedules and how to accommodate to the thousands and thousands of pieces of equipment to install."

Two buildings are scheduled to be released on July 26 followed by two more buildings ready for moving in on August 2.

serve more than 11,000 students and will include a library, central utility plant, as well as a three-story building for health sciences, mathematics and science programs, an applied technology building for automotive welding, and building construction programs and a general studies building which will serve as the student activity center including a student commons and bookstore.

The new campus will also incorporate an upgraded news room for ACC's student newspaper, Accent that will relocate from the small Rio Grande office to the Round Rock Campus. This newsroom includes a larger work room for the student staff as well as two small offices for full time staff.

Student Timesha Berry is anticipating the opening of the new campus. She currently resides in close proximity of the Round Rock Higher Education Center where she takes classes for her nursing career. However she feels the campus would offer more flexibility with scheduling classes.

"Round Rock Higher Education Center doesn't offer as many classes. You would have to go to another campus which is farther in Austin," said Berry. "So by us having our own campus, it will offer more classes so we wouldn't have to drive."