Ground broken for long-planned downtown GCC campus
NEW HAVEN — In the midst of the state’s worse economic crisis in decades, Gov. M. Jodi Rell broke ground January 26 on a $198 million investment in the city of New Haven’s future — a new Gateway Community College campus in downtown. The college is the largest construction project the state has ever undertaken and is the state’s first public building to be a Gold-Certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building.
The location at the corner of George and Church Streets will confront visitors city as they enter the city from I-91 or I-95 through the Route 34 Connector.
Slated for completion in 2012, as many as 350 workers will be employed on the project, which will rise on 3.7 acres of the former Macy’s and Edward Malley Co. department-store sites.
To accommodate the relatively tight space, the 358,000-square-foot campus building is four stories high and but includes a 600-car parking garage for a total footprint of 558,000 square feet.
The building will house 90 general-purpose classrooms, 22 computer labs, ten meeting spaces, library, cafeteria, bookstore, small business, culinary, health and early-learning centers.
The new facilities are expected to increase enrollment by up to 50 percent at Gateway, which is already the fastest growing community college in Connecticut. Current total enrollment at the school exceeds 11,000 students including 6,800 in college credit courses. The most recent semester saw an additional 15-percent enrollment increase.
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