AUSTIN, Texas — Austin Community College hosted a community-wide open house April 22 showcasing Phase 2 of renovating a mall into a college campus.
Highland Campus will house state-of-the-art classrooms, four incubators, a Creative Digital Media Center, performing arts venues, STEM Regional Simulation Center and a student-run restaurant.
“Our main goal here is to provide students with the experiences so they can safely and confidently care for patients,” Audra Lewis, director of the ACC Regional Simulation Center, said.
The simulation center features six simulation rooms, three specialty rooms that include an emergency room, a surgical room and a trauma room.
“It doesn’t replace clinical, but it’s a great compliment so students can practice over and over again and they are not going to harm anybody,” Lewis said. “They can make mistakes, [practice] how they act as a health care professional, what they should, what they shouldn’t do. How they’re thinking and their decision-making really can affect patient outcomes.”
Phase 2 of the Highland Campus is funded by the November 2014 bond election.
According to the district, voters approved two bond proposals representing $386 million in college-wide capital improvements with approximately $152.8 million allocated for Phase 2.
The building of the Highland Campus timelines goes back to 2010, when ACC formed a partnership with RedLeaf Properties and began purchasing sections of what used to be Highland Mall.
The mall closed in 2015.
Parts of the original infrastructure can still be seen throughout the campus.
Another program in Phase 2 is the Manufacturing IMPACT Lab. The lab works to get students into jobs with high-tech manufacturers.
“They could start an entry-level job at pretty much any manufacturer in the region, be it Samsung, Applied Materials, Tesla — they all hire our CPT students in entry-level positions,” Eric Hepburn, ACC IMPACT lab manager, said.
The ACC Highland Campus will be 1,200,000 square feet and will house 21,000 students, according to the college.