This project, which has been identified as the highest priority project in the College's 2003 Facility Master Plan, is essential to serving the educational needs of the Northeast Philadelphia community. The Northeast Regional Center currently enrolls over 2,500 students in each fall and spring terms, serving about 1,500 credit FTEs. The College has only 40 gross square feet per student at NERC, as opposed to over 90 gross square feet at the College's Main Campus and at the other two Regional Centers. Currently, over 25 percent of the students seeking to enroll at the Northeast Regional Center cannot be accommodated and must be served in other temporary locations. Because of space limitations, the College is not able to offer comprehensive library and student support services, nor provide all the programmatic options requested by students. The College owns adequate land at the existing Northeast Center location to accommodate the new building, as well as to address the parking needs which will ensue from the increased enrollment capacity.

The new facilities will greatly strengthen the quantity and range of offerings that are possible at the Northeast location. Currently, the following degree programs are offered at the Northeast Regional Center: Accounting; Business; Culture, Science and Technology; Education; Justice; Liberal Arts (General Humanities and Social Behavioral Science Options); and Management (Management Entrepreneurship and Human Resources Options). Within the expanded Center, new programmatic opportunities will be provided including: Emergency Medical Technology; Computer Forensics; Health Services Management; and Business and Industry Training programs. Two new biology laboratories will greatly expand the number of biology classes which can be offered at the Center. In general, offerings in the College's Liberal Arts and Business programs will be expanded. The expanded Center will include a significant amount of seminar and technology-rich space which can be used to address the educational needs of the Northeast Philadelphia business community.

The expanded Center will provide an opportunity for the College to begin to utilize new strategies for teaching and learning by integrating formal and informal instructional spaces and encouraging collaborative learning and improved use of technology both inside and outside the classroom. Learning support resources, including the library, learning lab and open computer labs, will be provided in an integrated suite of space which will facilitate the implementation of new strategies to facilitate student learning. All student services including admissions, registration, academic advising, counseling, financial aid, and bursar will be incorporated into one single integrated space providing students with "one stop" access to comprehensive services. This will greatly assist with student enrollment and retention goals and promote the efficient effective use of College resources.

Through the new construction and redesign of some existing space, the current enrollment capacity of the Center, which is approximately 1,500 FTEs, will be expanded to a capacity of approximately 2,850 FTEs. Planning for the Center will acknowledge the growing use of distance learning and hybrid teaching strategies which requires relatively smaller amounts of classroom square feet to accommodate the same levels of enrollments. Designs for the Center will emphasize flexibility in future use of the space, with the assumption that the space can be reconfigured over the life of the building to reflect an evolution in student learning preferences and instructional strategies. Support spaces including auxiliary enterprises and facility operations will be right-sized to accommodate the projected enrollment levels for the Center. The Center will be designed with operating efficiency being a key goal, so that the current role of the Northeast Regional Center as a net revenue contributor to the College is not lost in the expansion of the Center. An important role for the Regional Centers is community outreach and provision of space to support community events. Multi-function space will be built into the expanded Center which will facilitate community use at the times that institutional resources are not required for instructional purposes.