A new academic facility in Braddock Hills is designed to provide higher visibility and accessibility for students, a Community College of Allegheny County official said.
The Braddock Hills Center will be one of eight learning centers that complement the four main CCAC campuses -- in McCandless, West Mifflin, Monroeville and on Pittsburgh's North Side.
"We're always looking at those centers to make sure they're best serving the public good," said Irene Campano, vice president and executive dean of the college's Boyce Campus in Monroeville.
Besides the new Braddock Hills facility, scheduled to open in August, the college operates training centers in Robinson, Bethel Park, Neville Island, Downtown, Homewood-Brushton, McKeesport and Washington County.
In moving to an abandoned Rite-Aid drug store and an adjoining retail space in the Braddock Hills Shopping Center, the college will merge services now offered in Braddock and Turtle Creek.
Campano said the new 9,000-square-foot center will provide computer and nurses aid training, as well as a course providing a certificate and diploma in child-care supervision.
Although six staff members will move to the Braddock Hills location from the Braddock and Turtle Creek centers, an office systems training program will remain in Braddock in the Ohringer Building at 640 Braddock Ave.
Bob Hamilton, director of facilities management for CCAC, said the new center location in Braddock Hills was chosen because of better access to public transportation and better visibility.
"We wanted to be in a more visible spot and we wanted to be in an area we felt would be a great draw for adjacent communities," he said.
In addition to serving people in Turtle Creek and Braddock, the center's new location is intended to serve residents of Forest Hills, Wilkinsburg, North Braddock, Edgewood, Swissvale and Rankin.
The shopping center is located on heavily traveled Yost Boulevard, which is the main artery from Route 30 in Forest Hills to the Mon Valley communities of Braddock, North Braddock and Rankin.
Route 30 also is the main connector between Forest Hills and Edgewood and Wilkinsburg to the west and North Braddock and North Versailles to the east.
Hamilton said details of the 10-year lease with the owners of the shopping center are confidential, but he said the college does plan to spend about $120,000 for new furniture and equipment for the center.
The new center will house three 15-station computer labs, a video conferencing facility that will hold 18 people, and a nursing assistant's lab with five stations.
Hamilton also said there will be six general 27-student classrooms.
Although merging the Braddock and Turtle Creek centers and the creation of a new center in Braddock Hills will no doubt bolster the property value of the Braddock Hills Shopping Center, Peter may be being robbed to pay Paul in that regard, a property assessment attorney for the Woodland Hills School District said.
All three communities are located in Woodland Hills School District.
"It will be good for one shopping center, but bad for two other buildings," said Andy Evankovich, an attorney for the district. The two buildings will become tax-exempt.
The current value of the Braddock Hills Shopping Center is $3.78 million, according to county assessors.
