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The new Houston Community College-Katy campus, which will open in May, will include several features the former Katy campus did not have.
shifting spaces
HCC-Katy also owns the rest of the space and could potentially utilize it for more buildings in the future.
More science classrooms were built to support the growing interest in STEM classes. (Sierra Rozen/Community Impact Newspaper)
BUILDING FEATURES
Students, faculty and sta will have 800 parking spots along with 18 handicap spots.
There will be 44 classrooms at the new campus.
traditional classrooms 27
experimental
digital communication
classrooms 2
and art studio 1
horticulture, landscape and environmental classroom 1
science labs 7
music room 1
computer labs 5
SOURCE: HOUSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE KATY COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
COURTESY HOUSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE KATY
instructional site. This proximity will allow students to stay in one place and reduce the com- mute from the old HCC campus to the UH Vat Katy campus. TheUH Vat Katy campus not only hosts classes through UH V, but also classes that are hosted by the UH main campus, according to the school’s website. The new $26.3 million campus is funded by student tuition and the sale of the old campus, said Kathleen Anzivino, the college operations o cer for HCC Northwest. Construction on the campus began in January 2021. The three-story building will feature 44 instructional rooms, including sci- ence and computer labs, experimental classrooms, and a digital communica- tion and art studio, Anzivino said. “The old campus is more like a pro- fessional building. It does not deliver that ultimate student experience,” HCC Katy Dean of Students Rima Adil said. “Now with this campus, ... they have really paid attention to every corner.” The Foxlake campus had about 3,900 in-person students enrolled in the fall 2018 and 2019 semesters. Due to COVID-19, in-person enrollment dropped 64%, resulting in about 1,300 students enrolling in the fall 2020 and 2021 semesters, per college data. College o cials said they expect to have 3,000 students enrolled in person for the upcoming fall 2022 semester. Economic impact HCC o cials said they saw a need for a larger building due to the grow- ing science, technology, engineer- ing and mathematics programs. The 2016-17 school year had around 29,000
declared STEM majors versus about 33,000 in 2020-21. The number of declared STEM majors at all HCC campuses for the 2021-22 school year is almost 30,000, but these numbers are still being calcu- lated, Anzivino said. The original campus contained three classrooms dedicated to STEM— with one of them having to be shared between two subjects, said Susan Thompson, program director for engi- neering and STEM initiatives. With the STEM program expansion, Thompson and Katy-area o cials said they hope it will ll an engi- neering unemployment gap the Greater Houston area is experienc- ing. Many engineers are beginning to retire from their jobs, causing a need for more college graduates to enter the engineering eld, Martinez said. Within the six Katy-area ZIP codes that Community Impact Newspaper serves, out of 139,828 residents employedin2020,8,769wereemployed in architecture and engineering occu- pations, per ACS data. “[The HCC courses] meet a certain workforce gap, and they’re wanting to help ll that gap with these courses,” Martinez said. The engineering program at HCC Katy has a partnership with UH, called the Engineering Academy, that is o ered at both UH V at Katy and at the HCC Felix Fraga campus, located in Houston. If accepted into the program, engineering students are immediately co-enrolled at UH and HCC when their freshman year begins, Thompson said. Core classes are taught through HCC, and engi- neering courses are taught at either
A GROWING POPULATION Between 2016-20, the population in six Katy-area ZIP codes has continued to rise. The in ux of population and people enrolled in college or graduate school is expected to increase enrollment at HCC-Katy. Katy-area population* College/graduate students
2020
2019
+17.1%
2018
+10.7%
2017
2016
0
30K
60K
90K
120K
150K
*THE KATY AREA IS DEFINED BY SIX ZIP CODES: 77493, 77494, 77441, 77449, 77094 AND 77450. SOURCE: AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY DATA COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
to provide the rst two years of the four-year program for them,” he said. The May ribbon-cutting ceremony will be followed by the June 6 summer semester, which will o er 110 courses. An estimated 3,000 students will arrive on campus Aug. 24 for the fall 2022 semester. College o cials said the new cam- pus was built to meet the needs of the Katy area’s growing population. Data releasedMarch 17 from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey showed there has been an almost 11% increase between 2016-20 in the number of Katy-area residents attending college or graduate school in the six ZIP codes Community Impact Newspaper covers. Partnerships with companies such as NASA and Amazon are working to employ HCC Katy graduates, and the
economic impact of the new campus is expected to be large, said Chuck Martinez, president of the Katy Area Economic Development Council. A December HCC presentation showed HCC alumni have added $2.6 billion in combined income to their local industries, something that will impact the Katy community. “That’s our role in working with our community partners: to be able to attract industries that can hire these students,” he said. “Now it’s not only start inKaty, nish inKaty, but now live in Katy and work in Katy.” Amoving campus Students who attend the new cam- pus can transition after two years to attend classes at the nearby UH V at Katy building at 22400 Grand Circle Blvd., which functions as an
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COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER • COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM
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