York Tech unveils renovated building, opens $6.5 million fundraising campaign

York Technical College showed off a roughly $3 million renovation to the oldest campus building Friday, and launched the public phase of a $6.5 million fundraising campaign that officials say is already more than 75 percent complete.

The “Real. Bold. Better. Campaign” by the York Technical College Foundation aims to increase student scholarships in all programs, “innovate” learning and modernize the nearly 120-acre campus, said foundation chairman Rick Jiran.

The renovation to the C-Building, built in 1964 at the front of the campus, includes a combined technology lab and lecture hall, four classrooms and a new lobby.

York Tech President Greg Rutherford told several hundred business leaders and others at the dedication that the C-Building has been renamed the Comporium Center, after a $1 million donation from Comporium Communications.

“What it allows us to do is to literally create a window into learning technology for the community,” said Rutherford, referring to a display window into the technology lab that showcases it to campus visitors.

Rutherford said the 60,000-square-foot C-Building had small classrooms and a settling front foundation. The renovation to the building’s front area, which began in the summer of 2014, involved removing 8,000 square feet of space and adding 10,000 square feet with a new foundation.

The project also changed how the space can be used, Rutherford said, adding larger classrooms with space for the technology that’s taught in many programs.

Andreas Brockmann, department chairman of industrial maintenance and technology, said the technology lab allows instructors to talk about technology with students and give them the chance to use it at the same time.

Brockmann said before the renovation, “we only had lecture rooms or lab rooms,” which meant lectures about technology were separate from hands-on learning in labs.

Students in lectures “didn’t see what we were talking about,” he said.

Now, Brockmann said, “we will be able to have the lecture and the lab all in one place. It’s not only talking, and it’s not only doing. It’s both together.”

The college was demonstrating a manufacturing line technology Friday that has been in used for several years, but Brockmann said they expect to get new equipment.

Rutherford said the school, which serves 5,000 to 7,000 students each year, plans more upgrades as part of a long-range plan. “Over time, we are going to morph this whole building into the same thing you are seeing here,” he said.

Other changes incorporated into the campus include a York Tech monument, a new signage program and a loop road to improve car and pedestrian safety.

Jiran said the fundraising campaign, which started in late 2014 and is the largest in the campus history, has raised $5.1 million to “help the vision of the college become reality.”

Foundation officials said they expect the campaign to be complete later this year.

Comporium CEO Bryant Barnes said his company wanted to donate to the campaign because more than 150 of its employees have graduated from York Tech, which “has made a tremendous impact on our organization.”

Barnes said Comporium pledged to donate $500,000 to the initial campaign, with another $500,000 if another organization would step up and give $500,000.

Other major donors to the campaign include the Springs Family and Springs Entities, Founders Federal Credit Union, and TruVista and The Chester Foundation.

Plans for money raised in the foundation’s “Real. Bold. Better. Campaign” include:

▪  $1 million toward access: Significant increases in scholarship funding for all programs, more collaboration with high schools, more interships and work-based learning, sustained funding for programs that attract top students and an applied baccalaureate, partnering with four-year schools.

▪  $2 million toward learning innovation: A technology convergence center for student, instructor and business collaboration, more professional development and additional student development and engagement programs.

▪  $3 million toward the learning environment: Improving the C-Building, transforming the library into a high-tech “learning commons,” continued technology upgrades, improving roads and parking and launching new campus signage.

Other campus plans include a pedestrian corridor, a transportation technology program building, a new “enterprise campus” and a new health and human services building that will house a child development center.

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 11:30 AM with the headline "York Tech unveils renovated building, opens $6.5 million fundraising campaign."