STEPHENVILLE (April 19, 2018) — A new home for Tarleton State University’s School of Engineering achieved an important milestone yesterday when workers reached the pinnacle of the building’s construction and marked more than 100,000 hours without a time-loss injury — a celebration known as “topping out.”
Set to open in January 2019, the 97,000-square-foot facility will provide space for many programs currently housed in several facilities across the Stephenville campus, including civil, mechanical, electrical and environmental engineering; engineering technology; construction science; and computer science.
“This is an extraordinarily important building to Tarleton,” President F. Dominic Dottavio told those at the noon event. “We have worked for many years to develop a more robust engineering program. It has been only in the last few years that we have been able to expand beyond a couple of degree programs and make significant progress as an engineering school.
“This is not just about building a building,” he said. “For us, it is about providing the university with a new focus, new aspirations. It is about making dreams come true for our students.”
The number of Tarleton engineering, engineering technology and computer science students has doubled since 2010, according to Dottavio, and continued enrollment growth is projected as the university aids in meeting the need for highly skilled engineering professionals in Texas.
Part of Tarleton’s Fiscal Year 2017-2020 Capital Plan approved in 2016 by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, the building is located between Lillian and St. Peter streets — north of Washington Street. The 84th Texas Legislature approved bond funding for the facility in 2015.
Heavy-use and high bay labs — with main corridors wide enough to move materials and equipment by forklift — and a fluids and materials testing lab (including a flume and wind tunnel) along with classrooms and offices will be housed on the first floor of the three-story facility. Innovative classrooms, a robotics lab, a prototyping lab, a computer lab and more offices will be located on the upper floors.
Stantec is the architect, and BE&K is the general contractor for the project.
For more information on Tarleton’s engineering, engineering technology and computer science programs, visit www.tarleton.edu/COST.
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