EXPANSION
Wake Tech has expanded programs, added faculty, and built new facilities to keep up with community needs. In September, the final beam was raised on “Building F” at Wake Tech’s Northern Wake Campus. The new building has more than 87,000 square feet of space for a library and learning commons, classrooms, a tutoring center, and disability support services. The $21.5 million project was funded with part of the 2012 bond referendum.
In December, Wake Tech cut the ribbon on Montague Hall, a new administration/classroom building on Main Campus that honors Harvey L. Montague, the longest-serving member of the Wake Tech Board of Trustees (and its current chair) and his wife, Texanna. Balfour Beatty constructed the 48,721-square-foot building, home to curriculum and workforce continuing education, the president’s office, the foundation, HR, communications, the business office, and facilities. Montague Hall was designed and built to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification standards from the U.S. Green Building Council. In April, Montague Hall was awarded the 2015 City of Raleigh Green Design Award and named the best non-residential Green Building Design project. Wake Tech's previous administrative building, Holding Hall, is being renovated for use as classrooms.
Wake Tech’s new Beltline Education Center opened in March, replacing the former Adult Education Center on Capital Boulevard. The 81,000-square-foot center houses Wake Tech’s first Advanced Manufacturing Center, a one-stop shop for training in machining, automation, and circuit board technologies that gives Wake County business and industry a customized space for employee training. It also features a full-service lab for the cosmetology program, which will offer salon services to the public. The center is the hub of College and Career Readiness programs, serving more than 500 students each day with adult basic education programming, including High School Equivalency Preparation (GED preparation), Adult High School, English as a Second Language, and Adult Basic Education (ABE/TOPS) for students with intellectual disabilities.
In April, local business leaders got a glimpse of the “next-generation learning environment” being created at Wake Tech’s new RTP Campus in Morrisville. The 94-acre campus will open fall 2017 to serve western Wake County and RTP with curriculum programs in global logistics, business analytics, information technology, 3D training and simulation, data storage and virtualization, cyber security and forensics, and web-enabled applications services. Degree programs for college transfer (A.A. and A.S.) will also be available as well as workforce continuing education programs in corporate solutions and biotechnology. Groundbreaking is scheduled for April 2016. The campus will ultimately have nine buildings and serve up to 7,000 students.
Wake Tech joined Wake County Public Schools in opening the Vernon Malone College and Career Academy, which allows students to prepare for high-demand, technical careers while completing high school. The facility has labs for 9 technical training programs taught by Wake Tech instructors, including automotive collision repair, biopharmaceutical technology, plumbing, welding, cosmetology, geospatial information systems, nursing assistant, and simulation and game development. The academy is named for the late Vernon Malone, a community leader, educator, and North Carolina senator who also served on the Wake County Board of Education and the Wake County Board of Commissioners.