Six years after Dallas County voters approved a massive education bond, residents could soon see a major payoff: an expanded El Centro Campus.
Dallas College Chancellor Justin Lonon recently told The Dallas Morning News the community college system is planning to select the development partner for the project by the spring. The development is funded by a $1.1 billion bond passed by voters in 2019.
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The bond package, which covers improvements across Dallas College’s seven campuses, represents one of the largest community college investments in Texas history. Planning for the new campus has taken several years, and Dallas College now has four development finalists, Lonon said.
The Education Lab
Here’s what you need to know about the bond:
Why it matters
The exterior of Dallas College’s El Centro Campus in downtown Dallas on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
El Centro serves over 30,000 students using the largest network of Bloomberg terminals of any two-year college nationally, said Lonon. That falls within the Dallas College bond project’s role in the state’s efforts to prepare students for living wage jobs.
Statewide, educators are working to produce 550,000 graduates annually by 2030. That matters to Dallas College, because the system partners with school districts to give students opportunities to earn free associate’s degrees before high school graduation.
The state also allocates funds to community colleges for student outcomes, such as the number of degrees, certificates, and credentials students complete.
The numbers
The distribution of those dollars is divided into $235 million for industry-aligned workforce projects and programs; $332 million for student-related instruction and success programs; and $535 million for the Dallas Education and Innovation Hub, according to Dallas College.
In Phase 1 of the bond program, more than 500,000 square feet of academic and innovation space across Dallas College campuses and workforce centers has been created, according to the college. That’s over $325 million in bond funds invested to modernized facilities and expanded workforce training capacities so far.
Timeline
The exteior of Lassiter Jr. Early College High School at El Centro in downtown Dallas on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
A lawsuit briefly delayed implementation of the bond projects, but Dallas County Judge Charles Stokes dismissed the challenge in December 2020 after finding insufficient evidence of election irregularities.
Dallas College is slated to complete the first phase of the bond program at year’s end, college records show. That work involved the completion of the Mountain View Campus Early College building, one of 10 projects across six campuses in phase 1 of the bond program.
El Centro falls within the next phase of the program, dubbed the “Dallas College Downtown Development Project” in the materials of the college’s formal request to development partners.
Impact
The project should result in a new downtown space for Dallas College’s El Centro Campus, and administrative offices for Dallas College’s central administrative functions, according to the college’s request to developers.
Specifically, the project calls for a new El Centro campus within a mixed-use development to attract entrepreneurs, startups and students to a walkable downtown district with housing, retail and office space, according to the college.
Flags fly outside of Dallas College’s El Centro Campus in downtown Dallas on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
That includes a new Dallas Education and Innovation Hub downtown, featuring a business training center and the redesigned El Centro campus, according to the college. The hub would serve as a technology and innovation center for businesses trying to grow and for entrepreneurs seeking assistance.
Additionally, the latest bond program includes plans for a new health sciences center for excellence in the medical district, according to the college. Next month, the college’s new early college high school on the Mountain View Campus will open. That 45,000-square-foot facility will serve students earning college credits while still in high school.
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Dallas College’s third bond
The 2019 bond package is only the third bond program in the system’s history. The first $41.5 million bond approved by voters in 1965 occurred to finance the system itself. Voters in 2004 also approved a $450 million bond package, resulting in 28 new buildings and five new community campuses by 2010, college archives show.
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.