BLINN BOARD LOOKS AT MORE HOUSING ON BRENHAM CAMPUS

  

The Blinn Board of Trustees has authorized a request for qualifications for additional student housing on the Brenham campus.

Blinn’s Brenham campus currently houses 1,322 students, more than any other community college in the state, but there are more than 400 students on the waiting list for fall semester housing.

Blinn officials say the development of additional housing would allow for enrollment growth on the College’s Brenham campus.

Steven Adams of Specialized Public Finance, Inc. spoke to the board about its financing options, which include college bonds and a private partnership.

If Blinn chose to finance additional housing through bonds, Blinn would own and control those facilities. Meanwhile, a public-private partnership could be completed more quickly, which would not affect Blinn’s bonding capacity and would limit the College’s investment in the property.

Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the board authorized a request for qualifications for a construction manager at risk for the development of the new Bryan campus.

That campus will be at Leonard Road and F.M. 2818. Blinn is developing a master plan for the new campus to be presented to the board in November.

The 95-acre property will be developed into a 10-to-15,000 student campus to complement Blinn’s current Bryan campus on Villa Maria Road.

The additional campus will allow the College to develop additional science, technology, engineering and mathematics offerings and expand its workforce, technical, research and health-related education programs.

Blinn anticipates hosting classes on the new campus as early as 2017.

 

 

 

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One Comment

  1. Four hundred on the waiting list, wow! That would certainly indicate a need for more housing. Maybe private investors would be interested if they could get minimum occupancy guarantees for the entire two semesters, or the number of midsemester dropouts. And knowing that students and parents would be held accountable for damages or investors could recoup losses from the college. I am sure our board will find a solution.

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