NEWS

FGCU's dream: Alumni center, performing arts hall, more labs

Thyrie Bland
tbland@news-press.com

When the 2025 school year starts, Florida Gulf Coast University is projected to have 18,481 students.

That's 3,640 more students than the university has now — a 24.5 percent jump in its student population.

So how is FGCU planning to accommodate its future growth?

The school is developing its master plan — a look at what it expects it needs will be during the next 10 years. Among the school's top needs: a building that will house classrooms and labs, an energy plant to cool the building and a health and fitness center, officials said.

The master plan is updated every five years. The FGCU Board of Trustees is expected to vote on whether to adopt the 2015-25 plan in December.

The plan also includes:

►Building two other academic buildings.

►Building an alumni center that would provide office space for the school's development office and space for entertaining donors and alumni.

►Building a 1,100 to 1,200-seat performing arts center that could be used by the theater and music departments.

►Building a parking garage that would be used when there are events, like basketball games, on campus.

►Expanding the music building, library and student union. The main purpose of the library expansion would be for additional study space for students, and the union expansion would create more meeting space.

"None of this is funded yet," said Tom Mayo, director of Facilities Planning at FGCU. "We are dreaming. A master plan is looking out at what do we think we will need to accommodate our growth. None of this is cast in stone."

What's missing?

If the board does approve the 2015-25 plan, more on-campus parking and housing for students won't be on FGCU's priority list of projects.

Among the reasons why is because the school isn't planning to grow at the same rate as it did in the past, school officials said.

The Board of Trustees instructed FGCU's administration to cap enrollment growth at about 2.5 percent each year.

The board decided to institute the cap because the state switched from providing funding to universities based on student enrollment to using a performance-based funding model.

From 2009 to 2013, enrollment grew at an average rate of 6.5 percent a year. In 2014, it increased 2.76 percent, university enrollment figures show.

As of Tuesday, the university's enrollment stood at 14,841 students That's a 2.6 percent increase in enrollment from the previous year, statistics show.

Another reason FGCU isn't planning to build more student housing in the near future is because two private housing developments — CenterPlace and University Village  —  are being planned for near campus. The plans for both projects include trying to attract FGCU students.

FGCU's campus residence halls have a maximum capacity of 4,748 students.

"So again considering our growth rate has reduced, considering that we have these two developments ... right adjacent to us doing student housing, it influenced us to slow down our student housing growth," Mayo said. "We are not anticipating building any new student housing in the next ... five years."

If there is anything on the campus that divide students and the school's administration, it's parking. The school has more than 8,700 parking spaces, but administrators and many students disagree on whether there are enough spaces.

"So what we are seeing is, if you count up the amount of parking spaces and our population, we have plenty of parking," Mayo said. "It just may not be in the most convenient places."

FGCU sophomore Keneshka Flores, 20, disagrees. She said when she drives to campus, it sometimes takes up to 25 minutes to find a parking space.

"It's hectic," she said. "I do believe we need more parking spaces, especially because there are so many kids now, and the school keeps growing."

Priority projects

The school's plan for the next 10 years and beyond is to build several academic buildings on land on an eastern portion of campus that is adjacent to Parking Garage 1. FGCU hopes the first building will be the School for Integrated Watershed and Coastal Studies.

It is estimated that the project, including the planning process, will cost more than $44 million. Plans for the building call for nearly 40,000 square feet of research laboratory space.

One of the main purposes of the building is to increase the number of students the university has in the STEM  — science, technology, engineering and math  —  fields, FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw said.

"As you know, all of the state universities have been encouraged to expand the number of graduates in the STEM areas," Bradshaw said. "The only way that we can do that is to have more laboratories and classrooms to accommodate those disciplines."

The school has estimated it will cost $9 million to build the plant needed to provide air conditioning for the building.

"We have drawings ready to go for that facility, so if given the money to construct it, we could bid that project today," Mayo said.

The other priority project in the plan is the Student Academic Health and Life Fitness Center. The building's estimated cost is $15 million.

Of the $15 million needed, FGCU has collected more than $6 million for the project through a fee that students pay.

The school is looking for ways to fund the remainder of the cost. Board of Trustees Chairwoman Robbie Roepstorff said she is hopeful an announcement will be made about the additional money when the board meets next month.

FGCU has tried to get extra money from the state the past three years to fund the center but has been unsuccessful.

"I have talked until I am blue in the face to every legislator about it,"  Roepstorff said. "I know they don't do bonding, and the (Public Education Capital Outlay) dollars aren't there. And there are only so many dollars to go around.

"They are trying. I get it. I hear it, but you know what, I don't want mental health problems at that university. And every university has them. I don't want to be headlines. We owe it to those students to have a health and fitness center there that can take care of our students. What we have right now was built for 4,000 students and the student-athletes and the faculty. No, it's well past due."