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Tech Celebrates Grand Openings on Campus

Tech celebrated the opening of two new buildings on campus this past week. On April 9, 2021, Tech had grand openings for the new Laboratory Science Commons building and the Marc L. Burnett Student Recreation and Fitness Center. These buildings have been in the works for many years now and have now been opened to all students. 

The Laboratory Science Commons is now the largest academic building standing on campus today and is the largest in school history. This building was constructed to be the new home of the chemistry department and some biology department. It provides a new, larger lab space for many other science programs. Tech broke ground on the building project in the Fall of 2017 and just recently finished the building last Fall in 2020. 

The new Stonecipher Lecture Hall was also dedicated on April 9. This is a new lecture hall that is located beside the new Laboratory Science Commons. This adds to the new building area that could become the apex of campus. 

“I am really excited to use the new Science Commons. Even though I am a computer science major, I am in the lab most of the time so getting a larger and more advanced lab is just awesome,”  Calen Kimmell, senior computer science major.”

Students, guest, and faculty members celebrated the Grand Opening of the Burnett Student Recreation and Fitness Center on Friday, April 9th. Photo by Laura Navarro

The Marc L. Burnett Student Recreation and Fitness Center is also one of the largest buildings on campus, and is the largest recreational building Tech has ever had. The building was built using only fees generated from students. Because of this, it is not open to the public and only open to students and faculty. The recreation center has been in the works for many years now and was completed last year, but only opened at full capacity this last week. 

“I’ve been excited about the new fitness center for a while. I have been at Tech since they started building it, and it’s great to see it finished. [The fitness center] has been a long time coming and after using it, they did a great job,” Garth Duncan, junior mechanical engineering major, said.

These new buildings are only the start for Tech. Renovations on Bruner Hall were started last year and will be finished in the near future. Tech also plans on building a brand-new engineering building on Sherlock Park. The timetable for this project has not been announced, but ground could be broken as early as the next year. 

Tech is investing heavily in the future, and the campus could look much different in a few years.