Lance Winter
KYLE — Austin Community College officials and community leaders broke ground Tuesday, Sept. 22, on a health sciences expansion at the college’s Hays Campus located in Kyle, marking the start of a project expected to train hundreds of additional health care professionals in one of the nation’s fastest-growing counties.
The project will add a new academic building, focused on nursing and other high-demand health sciences programs. The expansion, part of ACC’s voter-approved 2022 general obligation bond package, is expected to accommodate more than 900 additional students.
The approximately $100 million project is intended to strengthen the pipeline of nurses, technicians, therapists, medical assistants and other health care workers needed throughout Hays County and Central Texas.
“Today is much more than a building,” said Nina Almasy, ACC associate vice chancellor for health care professions. “It is about opportunity. It is about a student being able to pursue a health care career close to home, earn a credential that leads to a family-sustaining wage and create greater economic mobility and prosperity for themselves and their families.”
Almasy said the expansion will provide students with access to health care training, without requiring them to travel outside the region.
“We are not simply adding space; we are expanding possibility,” she said.
ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said the college has a responsibility to keep pace with the region’s rapid population growth and the workforce demands accompanying it.
“Central Texas is growing quickly and Hays County is at the heartbeat of that growth,” Lowery-Hart said. “ACC has a responsibility to keep up with that growth, to serve the community and prepare the students that are needed to make this community functional, working and growing.”
The new building will be anchored by ACC’s nursing program and is expected to include training in dental hygiene, surgical technology, radiologic technology, phlebotomy, emergency medical services, pharmacy technology, medical laboratory technology and sonography.
The project also includes a new central utility plant, parking, landscaping and other site improvements. ACC plans to seek at least LEED Silver certification for the building. The facility is expected to open for the fall 2028 semester.
ACC Board of Trustees chair Sean Hassan thanked taxpayers for approving the bond package and said the new building will help local residents prepare for careers available within their own communities.
Hassan shared the story of his mother, who worked long hours at laundromats and dry cleaners, while his family struggled financially. Their circumstances changed, he said, after she gained admission to a taxpayer-funded nursing program and began a career that provided financial security for the family.
“I am absolutely confident and so excited for the thousands of students who will come through these facilities because I am sure that this experience will be as transformative for them as the experience was for our family growing up,” Hassan said.
District 21 State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, described the groundbreaking as an investment in both students and the region’s future.
“As the population grows, so do health care needs,” Zaffirini said. “The students who will come here as we celebrate this groundbreaking will absolutely be prepared for a better future and to better care for their families.”
Zaffirini, a former community college student and instructor, said she would have a Texas flag flown over the state Capitol in honor of the new building and present it when the facility opens.
“The best part about groundbreakings is there’s a ribbon cutting to follow,” she said.
Hays County commissioner Michelle Cohen said the project represents the type of long-range planning needed as the county continues to grow.
“We must make sure that the institutions serving those people are keeping pace,” Cohen said. “That means thinking beyond what we need today and planning for what Hays County will need five, 10 and 20 years from now.”
Cohen said the region cannot expect its existing health care workforce to absorb continued population growth indefinitely.
“We must create opportunities for people in our own communities to receive the education and training necessary to enter these professions and we need those opportunities to be accessible close to home,” she said.
Hays County commissioner Walt Smith said community colleges offer opportunities to people who may not otherwise have immediate access to a four-year university. He also praised ACC for designing its facilities around the people who will use them and the communities they will serve.
“It’s not just a building; it’s the people who go through it,” Smith said. “It’s not just the classes we teach; it’s how you can improve the community.”
Dr. Tiffany Ricks, dean of ACC’s School of Nursing, said students need spaces where they can practice skills, work through real-world scenarios and collaborate across health care disciplines.
“Health care is hands-on, team-based, fast-moving and deeply human,” Ricks said.
Each additional student trained at the campus represents another professional who could eventually care for local patients, she said, whether as a nurse, dental hygienist, sonographer, radiologic technologist, surgical technologist or paramedic.
“These are more than careers,” Ricks said. “They are moments of care that touch lives, strengthen families and sustain our community.”
The Hays Campus expansion is one of several projects included in ACC’s 2022 bond program, which is funding new and expanded facilities throughout the college district.
