Altamonte SGA Petitions For A Second Building

The SGA at the Altamonte Springs Campus has started a petition for the addition of a second building to help with the overcrowding of the campus.

Seminole State College opened the Altamonte Springs Campus in January of 2008 and “basically opened at near capacity,” as Samantha Ciresi, Altamonte Springs Campus SGA President, puts it. The campus has “grown to become the second-largest campus hosting 14.85% of the student population” and “serves one of the largest population areas of Central Florida” as can be seen on the petition.

Seminole State College opened the H building to help alleviate the burden, but Samantha Ciresi says, “there’s only 2 classrooms and 20 faculty offices, and its meant for online students so it doesn’t really help the problem.”

The problem is so bad that there is a lack of parking during peak hours of the day. So, students have resorted to parking on a grass lot adjacent to the main building that would be the site of the building needed in the petition.

The cost of construction of a new building is not something SSC would be able to handle alone as a “mixed state funded institution.” So, “last year for the Altamonte campus we put in a request for a second building and the total amount was $48.5 million,” says Hector Dietsch, Facilities Manager at SSC

The college is “not competing” for funds but “just presenting” the project, and the school is part of a collection of schools across the state of Florida in need of money to fund their capital improvement plans.

Samantha Ciresi and the SGA over at the Altamonte Campus “have been trying for years to be on the college priority list” in order to get a second building. The problem seems not to be an absence from the “college priority list” but a lack of funds.

Until the college receives the $48.5 million, they asked the state legislature for with the intention of a second building at the Altamonte Campus, there will be no new building at the Altamonte Campus.

Note: The Seminole Scribe has since ceased publication.