MC celebrates opening of $32.9 million student center

Facility marks end of second phase of campus expansion

Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Photos by Charlie Shoemaker⁄The Gazette With modern amenities and design, the new Student Services Center on the Takoma Park⁄Silver Spring campus of Montgomery College, which opened Tuesday, boasts a cafeteria, financial aid office, computer labs and an admissions office — among other services — in more than 110,000 square feet of space. Click here to enlarge this photo

Long waits and lines that snaked around the old buildings made seeking services inconvenient. Now, all the services are packaged together in a new building, which opened Tuesday.

‘‘It’s very efficient now ... and less frustrating than before,” said Taye, of Takoma Park. ‘‘It’s really nice. There’s a nice atmosphere here now.”

The center, a $32.9 million project paid equally by the county and state, houses a cafeteria, financial aid office, computer labs and an admissions office — among other services — in more than 110,000 square feet of space.

‘‘A student services center itself is a very important fabric of the campus. Virtually, it’s a student union,” said Steve Simon, communications director for the college. ‘‘Before, everywhere you looked, there might have been some element of student services, but never all together like this.”

Montgomery College officials joined state, county and city legislators Tuesday to celebrate the opening of the center, the second phase of the planned $143 million campus expansion on the Takoma Park⁄Silver Spring campus.

‘‘Together, we must ensure that this campus has the capacity to support all the students who need Montgomery College,” Vice President and Provost Brad Stewart said at the center’s dedication ceremony, adding that the building has become a ‘‘one stop shop” for its students.

The next phase will consist of the renovation of the former Giant Food bakery adjacent to the college’s Health Sciences Center off Georgia Avenue in south Silver Spring. The warehouse will be transformed into the King Street Arts Center, equipped with galleries and an outdoor sculpture studio. The Montgomery College Foundation took out a bond of about $33 million to cover costs of the visual arts center, as that project was added to expansion plans after the state and county provided funding for the original plans, said Elizabeth Homan, spokeswoman for the college.

A separate cultural arts studio will be built at Georgia Avenue and East-West Highway in Silver Spring, and will seat 500 in one music and dance theater, and 120 in another performance space. The continuing expansion allows the college’s student population to grow, Simon said. The school can now increase its capacity from 4,500 to 7,500 students.

Talks of campus expansion and renovation began in the mid-1990s. Support from legislators came when ‘‘they saw for themselves” the state of the old buildings where students were going for their services, said State Sen. Ida G. Ruben (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring at the ceremony. The first phase of the extensive project was not completed until 2004 with the opening of a pedestrian bridge that now connects the Takoma Park side of campus to the Silver Spring side.

‘‘We finally got to the point where there’s true back-and- forth bustle between the two distinct parts of the campus,” Simon said.

That first phase also included the realignment of Fenton Street to make room for the Student Services Center and a 98,000-square-foot Health Sciences Center. Nursing and physical therapy classrooms were ‘‘portable” before the building opened, Simon said. Today, health sciences programs taught in the building share space with the Holy Cross Hospital Health Center, a community clinic for the uninsured and underinsured.

Legislators and students hope the improved amenities and renovations will make the college more of a cohesive community, and bring more students to the campus.

‘‘It looks like a school now,” Taye said.