Farmingdale College's New Campus Center On Track For Fall 2012 Opening

has grown a great deal since it's inception back in 1912, and to this day, it continues to grow in order to best serve it's diverse student population.

The SUNY campus is currently rife with ongoing construction projects, chief among them being a new Campus Center.

Kathy Coley, director of communications at Farmingdale State College, said that this building, which only recently began construction, will serve many of the needs of the campus population.

"The distinction is that it will be multi-use for the entire campus," she said. "It's going to have a book store, a convenience store. dining facilities, and a room that will be able to be used for dinners, events, and lectures."

Roosevelt Hall, which currently serves several of the needs that the upcoming Campus Center will take over upon it's completion, will still be of use to the school.

"It will be renovated...right now it is one of our most in-use buildings for outside events," Coley said. "However, the acoustics in the main room aren't very good. We want to make some changes and continue to use it, as it has our largest theater. We're not going to replicate the theater that's in the Roosevelt Hall building in the Campus Center."

As of press time, Coley reports that construction on the Campus Center is going right according to schedule.

"It's going well," she said. "They had to re-route a whole lot of utilities, because the area where we're building it was originally used to run water, electricity, and sewage. So, everything had to be moved into different areas underground. They're just about done with that, and they're probably going to be pouring concrete within the next week or so."

"They're right where they want to be," Coley added. "We believe that by the beginning of August, that they have the steel delivered and then we'll start to see some very rapid progress. Right now it's just a lot of dirt being moved."

Coley noted that construction updates and progress reports are available on the Farmingdale State College's website, including a live webcam following the work being done.

"We are planning on opening in the Fall of 2012," she said.

According to Coley, the Campus Center will be a centerpiece of campus-wide improvements slated to coincide with the school's first full century of educating the students of Long Island.

"It's exciting because we're celebrating our centennial anniversary starting this September," she said. "We're going to have a big event on April 12, when is when Farmingdale was signed into being, if you will."

"All the campus construction is very exciting because Farmingdale is a mature campus," Coley added. "This is just stage one; we have $181 million dollars worth of construction projects- we have a new school of business coming in, we have a new childcare center coming, and the roads are being completely re-configured. It's just going to be so wonderful for the students, so, we're very, very happy about it."