After failing to grow the Pinnacle Campus without great success, the ACC Board of Trustees finally decided to sell it along with the nine acres of land on which the structure stood. The College retained 46 acres as the site of a possible future campus. The Pinnacle Building had been intended for business purposes, but finally concluded that it was ill-suited for school classrooms and laboratories, The building had only four smallish elevators), and replacing them was not deemed feasible.
As for what ACC might expect to receive from the sale of the property, it was anyone’s guess. One ACC executive suggested putting the property on the market and just see what happens. The Travis County Appraisal District valued the land and the structures on it at approximately $38 million. Furthermore, anyone who might acquire the Pinnacle with thoughts of developing it would be obligated to respect the College’s mission and vision.
Interest in purchasing the Pinnacle Building was, to say the least, underwhelming. From an aesthetic point of view, its impact was jarring, a vertical monolith on a mostly rolling horizontal environment. It reminded some of Stanley Kubrick’s science-fiction adventure film 2001: A Space Odyssey with Its opening monolith scene. The Pinnacle building possessed only four elevators, which were undersized for moving large numbers of students in short spaces of time between classes. Nor was the Pinnacle building like a signpost announcing the future thrust of ACC.
ACC’s president, Richard Fonte, a majority on the Board of Trustees, and overwhelming support from Austin’s civic leaders wanted the College to continue and even expand it’s academic offerings and a high percentage of students enrolled in fundamental courses in arts and sciences intended to transfer to four-year colleges or universities. In fact, more than 5,000 of ACC’s 27,000 students were co-enrolled in classes academic classes at the University of Texas-Austin.
Source: https:statesman.newsbank.com/doc/news/17299D27A12E56C8?search_terms, https:statesman.newsbank.com/doc/news177A610AFA2C0?search_terms