Texas A&M's temporary campus in Alamo City nearing completion - San Antonio Business Journal:

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That San Antonio campus will be located at the formee Olivares Elementary School at 1450 Gillette onthe city's South Side. Texas A&M began renovating the former elementary school in May and expectsx to complete the jobby mid-October. Earlief this year, Texas A&M told the Business Journaol of its plan to temporarily offer classese at a South San Antonio Independenf School Districtcampus facility. The university began holding its Colleg of Business classes at the formefr elementary schoolin January. However, its othe classes have remained at Palo Alto CommunityCollege -- wherse the A&M program has been housesd since 2000.
The plan, says Frani Ashley, Texas A&M vice chancellor for academic affairs, is to move all of the classes to the former elementary school in time for thegrans opening. "South San ISD is lettin g us lease one oftheirt schools," Ashley says. "... We're hoping to have the grandr opening of the new campussometimee (in October). And I think that that's one factor that will help our He adds that the school is aboutg a half mile from Palo Alto and will stilll be easily accessible tolocapl A&M students.
Ed Suarez, spokesman for the South San Antonioischool district, says it moved students from Olivares Elementaru to the new Roy Benavideaz Elementary school in August of 2002. Texas A&M finalized a leasre agreement with the South San Antonio ISD for thepropertyy -- which has been closed sincde 2002 -- in December of last "The arrangement works well for us because A&M provides scholarships to 10 formefr South San or West Campus High School students while the district leases the building out for a yearlhy fee of $1," Suarez "The building was renovated at A&M'd expense.
" The larger space at the former elementar school, Ashley says, allows the university to more than double its classroomn capacity and help the school reach its enrollmengt goal of 1,500 students. The university has to increaseits full-tim e equivalent student enrollment to 1,500 before it can breaik ground on its new Alamo City That was the condition of receivinhg $40 million in tuition revenur bonds toward the development of the new campud when the measure was approved in 2003 by the Texas Currently, Ashley says the school has a total studenrt enrollment of 975 students. But only 572 of these are full-timd equivalent students.
Ashley says some studentsz aren't going to school full-time becausse they have to work or need morecollege funding. "If we could find a way to take the burdenb offof them, they may still have to work to pay for everything else, but not for college he says. "We'd like to promise a debt free which means students can go to apply for financial aid and if there areany we're hoping that we'll be able to provide scholarshipa so that students won't have to get any type of Texas A&M took on the task of reaching this goal earlier this year by launchintg the A&M San Antonio Foundation.
The goal of the foundation is to raiseabouty $8 million -- which Ashley says would providse scholarships to help the university raise enrollment to 1,5000 students.