By Ken Esten Cooke
Standard-Radio Post publisher

It is said when one door closes, another opens.

For the Hill Country University Center Foundation, a move to online higher education has meant considering a sale of its 26,000-square-foot building. The facility was a dream realized after more than a decade of work by local higher education supporters.

But the HCUC Foundation Board of Directors, the governing body of the facility at the eastern city limits, is negotiating a sale that could be a benefit for the City of Fredericksburg as it looks for additional space.

The foundation is in negotiations with the city to sell the facility at fair market value, estimated to be $10.5 million. If the sale goes through, the city may relocate City Hall to the building and be able to centralize many administrative departments currently officing in different locations.

HCUC Foundation will use the funds from the sale to ensure education is accessible to Gillespie County students by providing scholarships for post-high school education, including vocational and technical schools, certificate programs, colleges and universities.

HCUC Foundation Chairman Tom Hutton said after more than a decade of online course offerings, in-person course attendance has dwindled to a handful of students, a trend mirrored nationally.

“This presented an anguishing decision for us that we’ve struggled with over the last two and a half years,” Hutton said. “But I really think this is the best solution for all concerned and we’re appreciative of the city’s interest.

“We deeply regret the situation that’s overcome higher education in the United States — there’s been such a big shift to online,” Hutton said. “And with us having a building constructed in 2010, we have 26,000 square feet and no students.”

The low attendance mirrors a nationwide trend for online education offerings, with more flexibility for students and lower costs for universities. The move to online was only accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, which decreased in-person attendance and added to online rolls.

Marc Williamson, former Fredericksburg Independent School District superintendent and chairman of the Forging Futures fund-raising part of the HCUC, agreed but said this should be viewed as an opportunity.

“There’s always a little bit of nostalgia with the building and with your names on it somewhere,” he said of the drive to get the building constructed. “But in all honesty, I’m not as sad as I am excited in that I think we’re going to actually serve the original cause better than we have been doing recently.”

“I was excited when we were filling the place up with classes,” Williamson said. “And then came COVID and the change (to online). You have to be nimble enough to say ‘there’s a better model. It’s better for the city.’”

Education will continue

But a sale of the building, which houses both Texas Tech University’s regional campus and Central Texas College campus, wouldn’t mean the end of higher education, officials said. Williamson said the change could get TTU back to its core mission of offering more courses, even if it held its classes in buildings at the Fredericksburg Independent School District.

The wine industry certification programs, which have proven TTU’s most popular local offerings, would continue, Hutton said. The city has discussed continuing to lease the lab and office space to TTU’s Davis School of Plant and Soil Sciences until the FlavoryTX Center is constructed nearby.

FlavoryTX will offer high school and university level instruction for hospitality and the wine industry, as well as promote the industry to the public with promotional events, cooking demonstrations and other programs.

Similarly, OLLI programs, continuing education offerings for adults ages 50 and older, will continue, Hutton said.

“The space exists in the community and FISD locations to continue what I think is a very valuable program,” Hutton said.

The Hill Country University Center was Texas Tech’s first regional campus. TTU has closed three regional sites to date, Hutton said.

City needs

The city’s needs in a 2015 study showed a need for an additional 26,000 square feet of space to centralize some administrative positions.

While the $10.5 million price tag is a hefty expense for the city council, the price would be one-third of what new construction would cost (including land price). A five-year construction timeline could also be avoided, said City Manager Clinton Bailey.

“The city already owns this land,” which it leases to the University Center, Bailey said, and the cost would be a relative bargain.

“We’ve been trying to keep people — namely police officers, fire and EMS — getting them fully staffed and getting our pay to where it needed to be,” Bailey said. “The mayor and I were at a meeting some time ago and we both thought ‘this would make a wonderful City Hall.’”

The move would also allow the current city hall to be used for additional police, fire and EMS presence. Bailey said in last year’s neighborhood town hall meetings, residents voiced concerns about a need for additional police presence on Main Street. And the move would let fire and EMS administrative staff all be in once place.

If the deal goes through, the H-E-B Community Room could potentially be the new City Council chambers with more room for the public than the current room at the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) offers.

The LEC, which houses offices for the Fredericksburg Police Department, Gillespie County Sheriff’s Department and the Department of Public Safety, would benefit from additional space as its current situation has officers “climbing over each other.”

“The sale of the HCUC facility to the city makes good sense for several reasons,” Mayor Jeryl Hoover said.

In addition to better fulfilling higher education needs, the HCUC is on city land that is large enough it would never need to purchase more land to fulfill any expansion. “It has the necessary square footage to suit our City Hall needs immediately,” Hoover said. “It’s located away from downtown, providing some relief from the crowded conditions.”

Hoover said a sale that avoids a bond issue makes sense because both parties will benefit, the city transacted the sale price to align with its means it currently has without a bond issue, and the HCUC was in need of relief to get back to its original education mission.

“The taxpayers have every right to require us to justify the need for a larger City Hall regardless of how it’s paid for,” Hoover said.

The current City Hall was built in 1992 when Fredericksburg had half the population and fewer demands on city services.

“We didn’t anticipate this solution coming at this time, but we believe the benefits of this transaction are too good to pass up,” he said.

“It doesn’t require us to seek and purchase land, hire architects and contractors and manage a multi-year building process along with the everyday business at City Hall,” he added.

Hoover said both the HCUC Foundation and the city ordered their own appraisals.

He said the HCUC board came down some and city came up to “meet in the middle.”

“We know and trust each other’s motives and we both represent a local constituency,” Hoover said of the two entities.

Reaction

Hutton said he has had mostly supportive comments from TTU donors and the public about the proposition. A sale would unshackle the higher education offerings from roughly $250,000 in maintenance and administrative costs, which it could plow into more scholarship opportunities for local students.

“This was the first regional campus for Texas Tech,” Hutton said. “To the community’s credit, they built a lovely facility.”

Fundraising also will continue with the Forging Futures Classic golf tournament and the Mortarboard membership, Hutton said.

Funds from those events will be steered toward students attending all colleges, not just Texas Tech or Central Texas College.