College’s Growth Spreading to Middletown Significant changes are coming to SUNY Orange’s Middletown campus, including the first new building construction on the site since the mid 1970s, as the College seeks to enhance its curriculum with the addition of a Lab School and a Center for Architecture, Science and Engineering. A four-level parking garage is also on the agenda. This past July, the Orange County Legislature unanimously approved its portion of $60 million in funding for the Middletown projects, expected to be completed by the end of 2014.
Members of the Kaplan family were presented with a painting of Kaplan Hall by Dr. William Richards at the building dedication ceremony in March.
center,” comments biology professor Dr. Melody Festa. “They are not coming to an office building and leaving. They are staying around, and that greatly enhances their learning.” The new Lab School will alleviate overcrowding of the current Kindercollege site and allow the College to forge closer ties between Kindercollege and several academic departments.
The Lab School, planned for the site of the current tennis courts adjacent to Parking Lot 11 along South Street, will house the Kindercollege and will offer the College’s education students a first-class space in which to observe the behavior of toddlers and preschoolers, and to hone their teaching skills. The new science building will be constructed on the site of the current Sarah Wells Building, and will be home to SUNY Orange’s science, engineering, architecture and biology programs, as well as an entrepreneurial center. Construction of the Lab School will begin this fall and conclude next summer. The parking garage, to be built on the current lot at the intersection of Wawayanda Avenue and East Conkling Street, will add approximately 300 spaces. It will also provide relief for the loss of the Harriman Hall parking lot during demolition of Sarah Wells (set for Summer 2012) and the two-year construction period for the science building (Summer 2012 through Summer 2014). The final phase of the project will include renovations to those classrooms and labs across campus that will be vacated by the programs relocated to the science building. Renovations are scheduled to be finished in December 2014. “Our Middletown campus is long overdue for this type of an upgrade, and we are anxious to get under way,” says Dr. William Richards, SUNY Orange president. “As these buildings come online, I expect we will see the same type of renewed energy and academic vigor in our Middletown students that we witnessed in the early days of Kaplan Hall.”
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Other amenities will assure greater student retention and lead to improved student success. A new three-story parking garage offers quick and easy entry to the campus. The ability to complete certain degree programs entirely in Newburgh has created in students a newfound sense of control over their academic future. And the robust menu of student support services, along with willing and able staff trained to assist, has empowered President Dr. William Richards chats with students to reach Barbara Scherr, left, and Nancy Calhoun a higher level of during the March dedication event. achievement. But the College’s commitment to Newburgh has not ended. Significant renovations are under way in the Tower Building and that overhauled space should be available for use next spring, effectively doubling SUNY Orange’s capacity to serve students in Newburgh. The new Tower Building will feature updated classrooms and laboratories, criminal justice classroom and crime scene laboratory, student art gallery, painting/drawing studio, computer graphics lab, music and art rooms, offices, bookstore, Kindercollege childcare space, fitness center, café, and student activities areas. The College’s Newburgh campus is bringing the promise of higher education closer to thousands of residents in eastern Orange County—as well as their neighbors in Ulster and Dutchess counties—and will continue to do so for decades to come.
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