Lanier Technical College officially breaks ground at the location of the new $100 million Hall Campus

Lanier Technical College officially broke ground at the location of the new $100 million Hall Campus in Gainesville. Governor Nathan Deal was the keynote speaker

Governor Deal, Technical College System of Georgia, Gretchen Corbin, Lanier Technical College’s President, Dr. Ray Perren, plus many members of the State Board of Directors of the TCSG, and many elected local and state officials celebrated the exciting step for Lanier Technical College, for the communities that it serves, and for the people of Georgia by breaking ground. Over 100 people attend the ceremony.

The TCSG State Board of Directors approved a budget request that includes $52.1 million for the new Lanier Tech campus. The current budget, FY 2017, has $48.3 million in it, and $10 million was included in the FY 2016 budget for land purchase and planning expenses.

Grading and construction at the new campus site are slated to start mid-October, and classes are planned to start in January 2019. The current campus has about 2,500 students, and the new Hall Campus will be able to serve about 5,000, Dr. Ray Perren, Lanier Tech’s President said. The new campus almost doubles the current capacity of Lanier Tech’s main campus. Plans for the new campus have six buildings with almost 325,000 square feet on 95 acres.

Dr. Perren noted that the new campus is the largest capital outlay project to have been done by the technical college system. It is a very rare event for a college to get an entirely new campus.

Gov. Nathan Deal noted that the new Hall Campus is “the model, in my opinion, for other technical institutions.”

The Governor also praised the Technical College System of Georgia for meeting training needs of the State in “an evolving picture, one that is changing rapidly.”

Deal also emphasized the state is “not going to waste anybody’s money.” The current Lanier Tech campus will become part of the Oakwood campus of the University of North Georgia, “one of the more rapidly growing institutions in the state,” Deal said.

Lanier Technical College celebrates 50 years of education and workforce development this year. Classes started at the College in 1966.