Framingham State Adjusts Expansion Plans
Any growth will be on campus
Framingham State College has nixed plans for expansion on the site of the former Conference Center at Marlborough, citing cost as a main factor.
Dale Hamel, the school's vice president of administration and finance, said the decision was made to try to expand the school's dormitory space on or near its Framingham campus.
"We're going back to pursuing the different options of building on campus," Hamel said. "We need student housing, and we will continue to pursue opportunities as they might come available."
The matter of expansion was discussed at recent board and finance committee meetings.
Suite Accommodations
The school had considered moving some residential and educational programs to the sprawling 237,000-square-foot former hotel and conference facility in Marlborough. The hotel rooms would have made for good, and available, student housing and there are a number of classrooms and meeting rooms on-site.
But the asking price was too high, Hamel said, and in the end it may have been too far from the school's Framingham campus.
"We need student housing, and we're always looking to expand our academic offerings in locations as well," Hamel said. "[The Marlborough location] would have met both needs, but in the end we couldn't come to an agreement on cost and discussions on how it fits with the mission of the institution."
The school will focus on acquiring property contiguous to its current campus, Hamel said, in order to facilitate more student housing.
The campus currently has 1,513 beds, and is at 100 percent capacity. All freshmen are housed on campus, Hamel said, and the college hopes to increase on-campus options for upperclassmen in the future.
"We're housing just under 50 percent of our full-time undergrads on campus," Hamel said. "That is the threshold goal that the [state] has set. So we don't need to act immediately."
The Marlborough facility was sold by Verizon to GHP Office Realty of White Plains, N.Y., last May for $13.8 million. City officials said the facility has been shuttered since July. Boston-based Newmark Knight Frank of Massachusetts are brokers for the property. _
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments