The Montgomery College Board of Trustees yesterday approved a resolution to permit developer Foulger-Pratt to enter into a ground lease with Holy Cross Hospital as the anchor tenant of a future science and technology park on the College’s Germantown Campus. This new relationship with Holy Cross Hospital will benefit the students, faculty and staff of Montgomery College and the greater community by providing training and educational support to meet the region’s healthcare needs, and providing approximately 600 new jobs to support economic development in Montgomery County.
With a location along the Interstate 270 corridor, Montgomery College’s Germantown Campus is in a unique position to serve the science, technology and health industries, local businesses and Montgomery County residents. With this new resolution, Montgomery College takes an important step forward toward its vision of developing an integrated academic, business and research environment on the Germantown Campus.
“With Holy Cross Hospital as an anchor tenant, Montgomery College will realize its goal of creating one of the premier science and technology parks in the Washington region,” said Dr. Brian K. Johnson, president of Montgomery College. “Montgomery College has positive working relationships with all area hospitals, and we look forward to the new opportunities that the Holy Cross Hospital relationship will provide to our students and our community.”
The resolution approved by the Montgomery College Board of Trustees calls for Montgomery College to work with Foulger-Pratt Companies, serving as the park’s developer, to sublease land to Holy Cross Hospital for a new hospital. Approximately 26 acres within the future science and technology park will be set aside for the hospital site on the Germantown Campus.
As part of its relationship with Montgomery College, Holy Cross Hospital will provide placements of at least 64 nursing or health sciences students each semester for clinical training at their hospital sites in Germantown and Silver Spring. Priority will be given to Montgomery College students at the Germantown site, which will assist Montgomery College as it works toward a goal of doubling its number of nursing graduates. Holy Cross Hospital will also provide instructional space and one full-time equivalent employee each year to teach in designated College programs. In turn, Montgomery College will offer credit and noncredit classes and training on the Germantown hospital site for hospital employees.
Finally, Holy Cross Hospital will designate to the extent permitted its contribution to the Maryland Hospital Association’s “Who Will Care” Fund for Nursing to Montgomery College. The hospital will contribute additional funding each year to support designated instructional programs at Montgomery College.
Holy Cross Hospital will anchor Montgomery College’s planned science and technology park, which would encompass approximately one million square feet across 40 acres on the Germantown Campus. Along with the hospital, the park will feature offices, labs, and specialized spaces for science and biotechnology businesses.
“Once built, the science and technology park will provide our students with unique learning opportunities,” said Dr. Hercules Pinkney, vice president and provost of Montgomery College’s Germantown Campus. “Students will be able to find employment or participate in internships to help prepare them for future careers.”
In addition to the park, the College’s plans call for the development of a Bioscience Education Center and a business incubator. The Germantown Innovation Center, a business incubator operated by the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, opened earlier this year. The incubator is located on the second floor of the College’s Goldenrod Building, which houses an academic center with classrooms, computer labs, faculty offices and administrative space on the first floor.
The future Bioscience Education Center will serve the rapidly growing science programs on the College’s Germantown Campus. It will also house the third and fourth years of the University of Maryland’s life sciences baccalaureate program, currently offered at the Universities at Shady Grove. This program will enable Montgomery College students to earn their bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, without ever leaving the Germantown Campus. Once construction funding is secured from the state and county, Montgomery College will break ground on the center in 2009.
For more information about the future plans for Montgomery College’s Germantown Campus, contact the Office of the Vice President and Provost at 240-567-7711.
Montgomery College is a public, open admissions community college with campuses in Germantown, Rockville, and Takoma Park/Silver Spring, plus workforce development/continuing education centers and off-site programs throughout Montgomery County, Md. The College serves nearly 60,000 students a year, through both credit and noncredit programs, in more than 100 areas of study.
