{"id":7376,"date":"2022-04-21T14:29:59","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T19:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/?p=7376"},"modified":"2022-04-21T14:29:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T19:29:59","slug":"groundbreaking-ceremony-celebrates-expansion-at-tcc-southeast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/2022\/04\/21\/groundbreaking-ceremony-celebrates-expansion-at-tcc-southeast\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundbreaking ceremony celebrates expansion at TCC Southeast"},"content":{"rendered":"

The groundbreaking ceremony at TCC Southeast on April 8 rightfully looked toward the future. Board of Trustees President Teresa Ayala called the event \u201ca celebration of a vision.\u201d That vision that will include two new buildings \u2013 one for academics and the other to elevate the student experience \u2013 and a major renovation of the eastern wing of the present campus plus the transformation of the Library into a Learning Commons.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the day was just as much about what Southeast has become than what it will be. The focus was on collaboration as well as construction, relationships as well as real estate. Speakers shared personal connections to the campus and to TCC, but they also paid tribute to its role in that quadrant of Tarrant County.<\/span><\/p>\n

Texas State Representative Chris Turner (TX-101), whose district includes the Southeast campus, visualized two aerial views \u2013 one at the present and the other when the campus opened in 1976. \u201cThis area has changed a lot, and it\u2019s changed for the better,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s grown. It\u2019s much more diverse, and TCC Southeast Campus is the focal point of Southeast Tarrant County.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jamea Johnson, representing Southeast\u2019s students, acknowledged that diversity as it exists among her Student Government Association colleagues. \u201cOur officers are Black, White, Hispanic, LGBT, Muslim, Jewish and international,\u201d she said. We all come from diverse backgrounds, and we\u2019re all working toward different futures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, whose college career began at TCC Northeast, jokingly warned today\u2019s students to be careful \u201cbecause you may end up as mayor of Arlington.\u201d He then closed by saying, \u201cThank you, TCC, for being a massive part of this community and a massive part of this county.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

County Commissioner Devan Allen recalled attending Southeast and Northeast simultaneously, shuttling back and forth in a \u201ctote-the-note car I bought on Division Street.\u201d But years later, when needing a COVID testing facility in her district, her first and last call was to Southeast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marcelo Cavasos, superintendent of Arlington ISD, spoke of working with Campus President Bill Coppola to create the city\u2019s first early college high school. \u201cWe now have two early college high schools and one P-Tech program,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re opening another P-Tech program next fall, and we come to the same door \u2013 TCC \u2013 because of its excellence, to partner to with us to provide these opportunities for our students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, quite frankly, we\u2019ll never know the impact that we have \u2013 that you have \u2013 on young people, their lives, generations and generations because you change one life in education and you change a family, a generation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And Acting Chancellor Elva LeBlanc, whose history at TCC goes back to her student days at Northeast, said that the day\u2019s celebration spoke, not only to the students, but also to \u201cthe support from the community, whose citizens always have understood the key role that Tarrant County College plays in preparing the future workforce and economic development of the region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the final speech and ritualistic dirt shoveling, attendees gathered in the Ballroom, glad to be out of the chilly wind while they noshed on pastries and hors d\u2019oeuvres and sipped customized, non-alcoholic \u201cmocktails\u201d whipped up by Culinary Arts students. Among a host of well-wishers stood Judith Carrier, who emcee Coppola had earlier called \u201cthe mother of Southeast\u201d and whose dynamic leadership fueled the campus from its inception to its status as a treasured community partner.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis (fulsome praise from community leaders) means that things are going so well here,\u201d she said. \u201cFirst and foremost, we are part of the community, and the community loves what Tarrant County College does and what it provides for students. More than that, however, is the diversity of the campus that makes it magnificent, with the leadership coming from so many nationalities, so many languages, and they\u2019re working together the way I wish the whole world would work together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, the campus will gain about 100,000 square feet and will be large enough to accommodate enrollment through 2030. The new buildings will account for about 100,000 square feet of the total, and Two hundred-thirty-four thousand square feet of the present structure will be renovated.<\/span><\/p>\n

The TCC Southeast project, budgeted at $142 million, is part of an $825 bond program approved by Tarrant County voters in November 2019. Work is underway on construction documents, with documents for Building 1 and Building 7 being completed in February 2022. Preliminary work began in March, with a projected completion date of September 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

Work planned outside the primary campus footprint, while not as head-turning, will still be welcome. The six temporary structures to the east will disappear, and the gravel parking lot will be expanded and paved, helping to alleviate a problem that has existed at Southeast since it opened. Coppola acknowledged the chronic parking shortage when he told the audience that the day\u2019s theme \u201cBuilding Opportunities for Tomorrow\u201d was selected only after rejection of an earlier effort \u2013 \u201cBad Parking Today for Opportunities Tomorrow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The groundbreaking ceremony at TCC Southeast on April 8 rightfully looked toward the future. Board of Trustees President Teresa Ayala […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":7374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bond-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7377,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions\/7377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tccd.edu\/bond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}