Space Available
Abundant room ready for use in TSTC facility plan as Texas State Technical College continues negotiations to purchase a portion of the former Intercraft Building, plans for how the space will be used show many of the current facility’s issues facing the EWCHEC partners would be eliminated.

If the pending sale is completed, the square footage available to all the EWCHEC partners would grow from the current 26,000 square feet at the Main Street campus to about 230,000 square feet in the new facility alone.

Temple College at Taylor had an enrollment of 200 students its first year and that number has grown to 900 this year.

“We’re thinking this campus will take off. The potential has always been here, the community has been very supportive of Temple College in Taylor since it started in 1998,” Executive Dean for East Williamson County Higher Education Center Chuck McCarter said. “We’re going to at least double our classroom space and Legacy will be taken out of the equation because they will have their own space.”

Nothing is etched in stone on how the space will be divided, but initial projections indicate about 40,000 square feet would be used by Legacy Early College High School.

It would include 15,000 square feet in classroom space, plus science and computer labs, a fitness center, cafeteria, conference room and offices. Currently Legacy uses four rooms at the EWCHEC Main Street campus.

The largest portion, or about 91,500 square feet, would be used by TSTC. Facilities would include shops for electro-mechanical trades, transportation, engineering and culinary arts as well as computer labs, classrooms and office space.

“We’ve had some customized training programs, but we have had no lab space for manufacturing, we have no technical expertise from Temple College because they purposely moved away from those areas and which is why they invited TSTC into Taylor to join them and provide those programs,” Taylor Economic Development Corporation president Jason Ford said. “The Big Industrial building, in addition to being able to train a much larger number of students, is allowing us to create an infrastructure for employer training for existing industry and attracting new industry.”

Temple College will have about 39,140 square feet with classrooms, offices and science and nursing labs.

Common spaces for all partners, such as conference rooms, a prep kitchen, library and break rooms would account for another 39,700 square feet.

The additional 100,000 square feet is expected to be leased to smaller manufacturers - potentially in renewable energy.

If the sale goes through, TSTC said it will be completed within 90 days and the hope is to have some classes available in the new facility by the fall, with everything in place by the beginning of 2011.