Texas A&M Central Texas sits on hundreds of acres of land, and not even half of it is being used. However, some new funding from the state could change that.
The campus sits on 672 acres to be exact. While it does not look like much now, thanks to some new funding, A&M Central Texas will be revisiting its master plan with the hopes of expanding.
"We've had this in the plan for a long time, this has been you know, almost over a decade and coming to be able to get to this point," said Todd Lutz- CFO, A&M Central Texas.
In order to grow sustainable fashion, first, they plan on building a Centralized Operational Reliability and Efficiency (CORE) Facility.
Lutz said, "The general idea was that once we got to a certain size, that we would need to centralize all of our utility services. Ultimately, the primary part of the core facility is a central plant, meaning heating and cooling for all the buildings."
Heating and cooling, and electrical services are all controlled under one roof. An initiative students can get behind.
Senior Cheyenne Stout said, "You always want that in any college or any aspect in your life you want to know that it's sustainable."
The CORE facility sets the stage for future development down the road.
"Even though it is a small campus I've been to big campuses, and I still didn't have that. And so, I think it is important to have," said Stout.
Lutz said, "It's kind of a key to being able to move forward with the full campus master plan."
The full campus master plan includes a University Police Department and an Emergency Operations Center, according to Lutz.
"That's our goal is to build an operation center and be able to train folks for those emergencies. In addition, we don't really have a warehouse space on campus. We built some smaller facilities, but the goal is to build a purpose-built shipping and receiving with some enhanced or expanded warehousing space," Lutz said.
University officials said potentially within the next 24 months, they will be revisiting that master plan and then be deciding where that CORE building will go. With 627 acres they have lots of space to work with.
The University will receive $45 million through SB52, funding from the state's $3.35 billion initiative to fund specific capital projects for Texas higher education institutions.
