SHW Group developed campus master plan and designed the new academic building
GREENVILLE, Texas, June 29, 2009 – The focal point of Paris Junior College’s new campus in Greenville, Texas – a new $13 million, 42,000-square-foot multipurpose academic building – is complete. It is the first facility in the college’s multi-phase campus plan, sited on a 172-acre tract recently retired from the agricultural business and adjacent to several community amenities. Dallas-based SHW Group, one of the world’s largest educational architecture and design firms, developed the campus’ master plan and designed the building, while Dallas-based Charter Builders was responsible its construction.
The new two-story facility serves up to 2,500 students and contains flexible, technology-enabled classrooms, a science lab, a computer lab, a library, administrative offices, and a large meeting room that can also be used as a classroom. It is located on land just west of Greenville High School at 6500 Monty Stratton Blvd. in Greenville, Texas.
The siting of the campus’ master plan considered identity and sense of place for the first building and subsequent buildings, providing a visual gateway to Greenville from the neighboring freeway. The main goal was to provide a long-range, sustainable plan for a campus of up to 7,000 students while ensuring the short-term goal of developing a multipurpose educational building to meet current needs. The master plan helped the college locate this first building, designed to be converted to a classroom building once support functions are located in new facilities. Additional planning and design goals include:
- Restoration of the site to a more natural state, including integration of an existing flood plain and reintroduction of native plant species.
- Incorporation of indoor and outdoor learning environments to enhance the landscape and provide a more dynamic beginning to the campus.
- Planning of the flexible, technology-enabled classroom building on a classroom-sized module to allow easy, inexpensive conversion to a classroom building in later phases of the plan.
- Collaboration with the City of Greenville and other public entities to provide for commercial growth, a gateway to the city, and future community projects.
.
“We will offer several different academic and technical classes at the new student-focused campus,” said Paris Junior College president Dr. Pamela Anglin. “Our new campus gives us – and the community – greater flexibility to do more in the future.” For more information, please visit www.shwgroup.com.
# # #
Media Contact: Claire Bloxom
claire@coopersmithagency.com, (214) 329-9191
