The 193-acre tract on east Riverside Drive was far more than the College needed, or could afford to develop. However, this real estate deal opened some very intriguing possibilities, not because ACC needed a golf course or envisioned an intercollegiate golf program, but rather because there was a shortage of municipal golf courses, and golfing was becoming an increasingly popular pastime among Austinites. Leasing the golf course to the City of Austin could help defray the cost of buying the property and of renovating the club house building for classroom use.
Terms of the purchase were favorable to the college, which paid $3.97 million, or $.48 per foot. Comparable land in the vicinity sold for $1 to $2 a foot. The college sold a revenue bond package of $4 million to pay for the purchase plus renovations to the club house. Student building use fees provided the funds to retire the debt.
The ACC Board of Trustees then sliced off a relatively small parcel of the entire tract, the land on which the former Austin Country Club clubhouse stood, for a new campus, while the city eagerly agreed to lease the golf course.
The timing of the deal was critical for the ACC Health Sciences Program, which was desperate for additional classroom and laboratory space. Since the city had condemned the old Brackenridge Hospital building, the associate degree nursing, vocational nursing, and radiology technician programs had been utilizing space in a business park on Ben White Boulevard near the Highway 290/71 intersection in southwest Austin. The Southwest Center, as it was named, was inadequate, however, and the Health Sciences program was in danger of losing its accreditation.
ACC had a new campus, and Health Sciences had a new home.
Austin Community College president Dan Angel presides over the dedication of the new Riverside Campus, June 3, 1988.
Austin Community College staff and faculty celebrate the dedication of the new Riverside campus site.
In the foreground, Learning Resources Dean Lee Hisle confers with Academic Vice President Dale Gares. In the near background can be seen ACC President Dan Angel and English instructor Paula Robertson-Rose.