STAFFORD — Germanna Community College’s Stafford campus is growing quickly forcing the college to expand the overcrowded campus.
The Stafford campus named the Barbara J. Fried Center when it opened in summer 2018 near Stafford Hospital is already having capacity problems. The campus already has 700 students enrolled in its first year of use.
“We have very little space left in our new Barbra J. Fried Center,” Germanna’s President Janet Gullickson said at the Board of Supervisors budget public hearing on April 2.
College officials are already having internal conversations about expanding and leasing the second floor of the Fried Center located at 124 Old Potomac Church Road.
Germanna was one of three community colleges in the state of Virginia to have its enrollment numbers increase for the 2018-2019 school year. Currently, there are a total of 23 community colleges in the state.
“We have too many students in too small of a space,” Gullickson said.
The estimated cost of leasing and construction would cost the college about $1 million which would cover an expansion of the health and science lab learning spaces and equipment. The college also plans to build a microbiology lab for students.
According to Gullickson, the college has already had discussions about building out the second floor of the building with HHHunt, the company that owns the building. Rent could also climb up to $2 million per year.
The Barbara J. Fried Center offers all Germanna transfer programs, including cybersecurity, nursing and business administration.
The Stafford campus also opened a nursing program in 2018 that had 20 openings for students to fill. The college received 100 applications for the 20 spots available.
The Fried Center is a temporary facility for the community college as they plan to build a permanent campus located at 143 Jumping Branch Road. The college will have 20 years to complete the project.
A land transfer was approved by the Stafford County Board of Supervisors in January 2018 to the GCC Real Estate Foundation. The land was donated by HHHunt for the purpose of building a permanent school.
According to Germanna’s spokesman Mike Zitz, it’s expected that the first stage of a permanent center that will eventually become a full campus in Stafford will be built within a decade.
Germanna’s new Barbara J. Fried Center located near Stafford Hospital was made possible by a $1 million grant from Adam and Rhonda Fried of Atlantic Builders
Germanna had previously opened a smaller leased center at Aquia in 2009, quickly outgrew the 600 student capacity building and moved into the currently leased center in June of 2018.
GCC serves a total of 13,000 credit and noncredit workforce training students at campuses in Spotsylvania County and Locust Grove, with centers in Culpeper, Stafford, Central Park, and Caroline County.
