Key Takeaways
- At long last, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is getting its Building C, a $152 million expansion, adding nearly 164,000 square feet with completion expected in December 2028.
- Decades in the making: After more than 20 years of funding efforts, state appropriations have fully funded the project.
- A unique partnership grows: The expansion strengthens the nation’s only joint engineering college shared by FAMU and FSU.
For more than two decades, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering has pursued an ambitious expansion that would give its students and researchers more room to work. Now, after years of planning and successive rounds of state funding, the project is finally under construction.
The college, a partnership between Florida A&M University and Florida State University, broke ground last month on Building C, a $152 million addition at its Innovation Park campus. The 163,950-square-foot facility, scheduled for completion in December 2028, represents the most significant step yet in a long effort to expand a school that occupies a distinctive place in American higher education.
The new building will rise near Pottsdamer Street and Engineering Way, adding teaching laboratories, an auditorium, a plaza and space for campus support services. Construction is being handled by J.E. Dunn Construction, a Tampa-based contractor.
For the college, the project is more than a new building. It is the realization of a plan that dates to the institution’s earliest years and has repeatedly awaited the money needed to move forward.
Building C was envisioned as part of a three-building complex in the college’s original planning in the 1980s. By 2002, the expansion had become a longer-term pursuit, with the SUS spending years seeking the state appropriations necessary to turn the concept into a construction project.
The effort gained renewed momentum in 2017, when J. Murray Gibson, then the college’s dean, made a formal case for funding before the Florida Board of Governors. At the time, the proposal called for a smaller building of roughly 104,000 square feet, with an estimated price tag of $87 million.
But securing the full amount proved difficult. State support arrived in increments, with smaller appropriations in the early 2020s followed by larger commitments as the project moved closer to realization.
The state allocated $20 million in the 2023-24 budget cycle and another $40 million in 2025-26. The decisive commitment came in the 2026-27 budget, which provided approximately $92 million to complete the funding package.
Together, the appropriations brought the project to its current scope: nearly 164,000 square feet at a total cost of about $152 million. Construction mobilization began around September.
The expansion comes as universities face growing demands for specialized teaching and research facilities, particularly in fields that require laboratory space and advanced equipment. Building C is intended to provide additional room for instruction and college operations while creating new gathering spaces for the campus community.
For students, the most tangible changes will be the new instructional spaces and facilities. For faculty and administrators, the addition offers an opportunity to accommodate programs and activities that have been constrained by existing space.
The project’s timeline also illustrates the distance between a university’s long-range ambitions and the realities of public funding. A concept first included in plans decades ago required repeated advocacy, revised estimates and a series of state budget commitments before construction could begin.
The original proposal envisioned a smaller facility at a substantially lower cost. The version now under construction is considerably larger, reflecting the evolution of the project over the years and the joint College's growing enrollment.