AUSTIN -- It's hard to tell that Austin Community College's new Highland Campus used to be a mall.
The college marked the grand opening of the new campus Wednesday morning in a sustainable, state-of-the-art facility that still contains much of the original materials used in the building's construction.
At the beginning, Highland Mall was a big concrete structure with hardly no natural light in those department stores -- a "bunker."
The school's president, Dr. Richard Rhodes, took the stage at the Wednesday morning grand opening event to explain the meaning behind the slogan the school uses to describe the transformation.
Rhodes said it went from "bunker to brilliance" -- not just because of the beautiful construction, but because he said the school will soon be changing lives.
The 200,000-square-foot campus includes a library and study areas. It is one of 11 ACC campuses that offer more than 100 areas of study.
Those amenities are just part of what the school's leaders envision as a "regional center of educational excellence and mixed-use development."
Faculty members the campus is perfect for a growing city like Austin.
"It's a pretty exciting time for everyone," said Constance Elko, chair of ACC's mathematics department. "Not just the community college, but the city as well. We're revitalizing this area of the city. It used to be a mall that was really sort of dying, and now it's a very interesting place to be."
Elko was an integral part of one of the campus' new features, the ACCelerator, which is the nation's largest learning lab with more than 600 individual computer stations.
Long-term plans for the campus include a regional workforce innovation center, regional health sciences center, professional incubator space and expanded public and private partnerships. If approved, a bond and property tax cap election in November will fund those projects.
ACC said enrollment at the new campus is more than 20 percent higher than expected, with nearly 3,900 students registered for the fall semester.
