UH-Clear Lake expanding in Bay Area, Pearland using state revenue bonds
The University of Houston-Clear Lake will receive state funding to construct buildings on its campuses in Clear Lake and Pearland.
House Bill 100 authorizes $3 billion in tuition revenue bonds to help fund capital projects at public colleges and universities throughout the state. The bill earmarked $362.5 million for the University of Houston system, with a combined $78.6 million designated to help fund two University of Houston-Clear Lake projects.
Of the 38 public colleges and universities identified in the bill to receive state funding, UH-Clear Lake is one of four institutions to receive funding for two buildings: $54 million for a science, technology, engineering and math building at its main campus in Clear Lake and $24.6 million for a health sciences building at its campus in Pearland.
Tuition revenue bonds are pledges of state payments secured by income generated by future tuition payments. The term “tuition revenue bonds” is a bit of a misnomer, said William Staples, UH-Clear Lake’s president.
“It really is a capital construction funding mechanism,” he said. “Funding does not come from student tuition.”
The university will issue bonds to raise money from investors, and the state will provide the debt service to ing will be available in fall 2016, Staples said.
The projects have been designed and are ready to be built.
The larger and more expensive science, technology, engineering and math building on the university system’s Clear Lake campus could open in fall 2018 or January 2019, Staples said.
The building will provide the campus with additional laboratories for science courses that freshmen and sophomores take such as biology, chemistry and physics.
Details on the size of the proposed were unavailable at presstime. Increased enrollment
Staples said the building is needed because of increasing enrollment. In fall 2014, UH-Clear Lake became a four-year institution. Since 1974, it had operated as an upper-level institution, meaning students transferred to the campus as juniors and seniors to pursue bachelor’s degrees or enroll in one of UH-Clear Lake’s master’s degree programs.
The transition last year added more than 500 freshmen and sophomores to the campus. University officials expect to see another 500 freshmen and sophomores enrolled this fall.
“Our enrollment in the fall of 2014 was the highest in UH-Clear Lake history,” Staples said. “We had 8,665 students, and we don’t have the final numbers in yet because this academic year just started, but we anticipate we will have more students this year than last.”
The 50,000-square-foot health sciences building planned in Pearland will have classrooms, laboratories and offices for faculty and staff. Staples anticipates the building will open fall 2018 when it will transition that campus to a four-year institution, which is expected to add more students to an already growing enrollment there.
It will be the second building on UH-Clear Lake’s Pearland campus, which has experienced an estimated enrollment growth rate of 46 percent since it opened in 2010. Staples said the Pearland campus’ student enrollment is growing in part due to the rapid population growth in and around the Pearland community, which is bringing with it more medical services.
“The reason we are positioning this as a health sciences and classroom building is that if you look at what is happening around Beltway 8 in general, all the major health care institutions in the Texas Medical Center are establishing satellite operations in Clear Lake, Pearland, Sugar Land, Katy and The Woodlands,” he said.
“The medical health care presence in Pearland has significantly grown over the last few years, and the expectation is that it will continue to grow because of population growth,” he said.
Pearland key
Staples said the city of Pearland was an important component in helping the university qualify for the state’s tuition revenue bond funding. The existing building on the Pearland campus was constructed by the city on a roughly 40-acre tract of municipal property. UH-Clear Lake essentially is in a 20-year rent-to-own agreement with the city for the building.
To qualify for the state funding; however, UH-Clear Lake had to demonstrate that it owned the property where the new building would be constructed. In March, Pearland City Council approved a resolution to donate approximately 14 acres to the University of Houston system on behalf of the UH-Clear Lake Pearland campus.
“Without the city of Pearland, without Mayor Tom Reid and the city council, (receiving tuition revenue bond funding) would not have been possible,” Staples said. “They really were key partners in establishing the campus in the fall of 2010 and now the forthcoming second building.”
Reid said the expanded facility will allow for increased academic offerings including bachelor’s degrees in nursing and degrees in other fields in the medical profession.
“Medical providers continue to flourish in Pearland, and it is important that we have the ability to provide academic training for those providers,” he said. “When this opportunity came about to build this facility, we had previously set aside several acres through a leasepurchase agreement for a potential expansion of the UH-Clear Lake Pearland campus and we are delighted to make this land available for the college.”