Cuyahoga Community College seeks to modernize aging campuses, address excess space, and strengthen connections with surrounding neighborhoods while responding to changing demographics and enrollment patterns. Our Integrated Facilities Plan guides strategic reinvestment through facility renewal, campus activation, and flexible redevelopment opportunities that align academic, community, and student needs. The plan creates a framework for more welcoming, efficient, and resilient campuses that support long-term institutional success.
Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) serves nearly 18,000 students in metropolitan Cleveland across multiple campuses, and delivers wide-ranging academic offerings from healthcare and transfer programs to technical degrees. While significant recent investment has modernized key facilities, many buildings from the 1960s and 1970s have not seen major renovations. In many cases, concrete walls, windowless buildings, and expansive open spaces separate the campus from the community. As the region experiences demographic and economic shifts and Tri-C rebuilds its enrollment from a period of decline, the Integrated Facilities Plan is an essential tool for upgrading and repurposing excess and poor-quality space, presenting an inviting impression, fostering student well-being and displaying sustainability.
Proposed investments and conceptual designs represent a generational investment in each campus to modernize instruction, position partnerships and engaged learning, provide amenities to attract new students, and enhance Tri-C’s presence in the region. The plan introduces a cohesive design framework that enhances transparency, accessibility, and neighborhood integration, while supporting Tri-C’s strategic goals around equity, sustainability, and innovation.
The Integrated Facilities Plan addresses the physical and programmatic challenges on Tri-C’s four primary campuses, charting a path for the next decade of improvements across nearly 2.4 million SF. We conducted a regional demographic analysis to identify population challenges and opportunities to recruit non-traditional students.
A space analysis revealed excess space on every campus, leading to brainstorming exercises with Tri-C leadership to identify potential community partners and future campus uses. A housing study confirmed demand and identified optimal locations for student residences. The plan recommends replacing costly, outdated buildings with smaller, purpose-built facilities, improving pedestrian experiences through transparent ground levels and activated open spaces, and enhancing wayfinding and accessibility. Key recommendations include new academic buildings, Welcome Centers, athletic and recreation upgrades, and a landscape redesign to reconnect the Metro campus with its urban surroundings. We provided campus planning services.
