Malls and colleges are closing across the country—reusing or repurposing these spaces is challenging but not impossible. Here at two successful case studies from Nebraska and Texas.
Interesting…as a grad student in my case taking optional literary coursework as a writer, I watched the creation in literally first actions with the ACC = Austin (Texas) Community College transformation. It established a major educational hub within the (seriously lagging) commercially-based shopping mall with the hiring of an entrepreneurially-minded, new head executive.
It rapidly then transformed thoroughly an invaluable multi-county location college into an educational hub all across Travis County (the main Austin-based one) and surrounding counties. Classes steadily continued daily as commercial-mall only usage declined naturally due to the various directions of growth Austin and immediately surrounding towns (like RoundRock and Sugarland) took themselves.
This was a terrific example of an educational entity responding to both the needs and the physical changes of a city, a county and ultimately that corner of the State of Texas. You’ll find this in replication now in other college and mall-based locations throughout Texas but ACC - Austin Community College built the model successfully for them as a education/mall model.
Interesting…as a grad student in my case taking optional literary coursework as a writer, I watched the creation in literally first actions with the ACC = Austin (Texas) Community College transformation. It established a major educational hub within the (seriously lagging) commercially-based shopping mall with the hiring of an entrepreneurally mind new head executive.
It rapidly then transformed thoroughly an invaluable multi-location college into an educational hub all across Travis County (the main Austin-based one) and surrounding counties. Classes steadily continued daily as commercial-only usage declined naturally due to the various directions of growth Austin and immediately surrounding towns (like RoundRock and Sugarland) took themselves.
This was a terrific example of an educational entity responding to both the needs and the physical changes of a city, a county and ultimately that corner of the State of Texas. You’ll find this in replication now in other college and mall-based locations throughout Texas but ACC - Austin Community College built the model successfully.
Interesting…as a grad student in my case taking optional literary coursework as a writer, I watched the creation in literally first actions with the ACC = Austin (Texas) Community College transformation. It established a major educational hub within the (seriously lagging) commercially-based shopping mall with the hiring of an entrepreneurially-minded, new head executive.
It rapidly then transformed thoroughly an invaluable multi-county location college into an educational hub all across Travis County (the main Austin-based one) and surrounding counties. Classes steadily continued daily as commercial-mall only usage declined naturally due to the various directions of growth Austin and immediately surrounding towns (like RoundRock and Sugarland) took themselves.
This was a terrific example of an educational entity responding to both the needs and the physical changes of a city, a county and ultimately that corner of the State of Texas. You’ll find this in replication now in other college and mall-based locations throughout Texas but ACC - Austin Community College built the model successfully for them as a education/mall model.
Nice! Glad we could have this success story on the College Town page. Hope to see more. Sometimes Im worried if we are too negative here.
Interesting…as a grad student in my case taking optional literary coursework as a writer, I watched the creation in literally first actions with the ACC = Austin (Texas) Community College transformation. It established a major educational hub within the (seriously lagging) commercially-based shopping mall with the hiring of an entrepreneurally mind new head executive.
It rapidly then transformed thoroughly an invaluable multi-location college into an educational hub all across Travis County (the main Austin-based one) and surrounding counties. Classes steadily continued daily as commercial-only usage declined naturally due to the various directions of growth Austin and immediately surrounding towns (like RoundRock and Sugarland) took themselves.
This was a terrific example of an educational entity responding to both the needs and the physical changes of a city, a county and ultimately that corner of the State of Texas. You’ll find this in replication now in other college and mall-based locations throughout Texas but ACC - Austin Community College built the model successfully.