{"id":244931,"date":"2026-04-11T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/244931\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:00:13","slug":"panola-college-set-to-expand-with-two-new-buildings-in-east-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/244931\/","title":{"rendered":"Panola College set to expand with two new buildings in East Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panola College, which Niche ranked as Texas’ best Community College<\/a> and best Online Community College this year, is set to break ground in less than a month on two brand-new buildings.<\/p>\n

Located in rural East Texas,\u00a0Panola emphasizes workforce training and student support services alongside academics. The school announced record enrollment in Spring 2025<\/a>, noting that it’s making “significant strides” in enhancing offerings to serve students and the community, according to a news release from the College.<\/p>\n

The nearly-19,000-square-foot Digital Learning Building is expected to cost $9 million, with construction to begin on May 1. The 25,000-square-foot Gateway Building is expected to cost $11 million, with construction to begin just 11 days later.<\/p>\n

Both buildings are expected to be completed by Sept. 1, according to a posting from the Texas Department of Licensing and Registration. A tentative schedule in the school’s request for people <\/a>to work on the project lists a move-in date of\u00a0Aug. 9 to be ready for the Aug. 23 start of fall classes.<\/p>\n

The two-story Gateway Building is expected to house classrooms and labs focused on “academic and workforce and continuing education class offerings,” as well as support, office and collaboration space, according to documents from the college.<\/p>\n

The Digital Learning Building will house the college’s relocated IT department, server room and network operations center. In addition, the building will include digital learning classrooms and laboratories as well as spaces for e-sports gaming and programs in computer science, engineering and other emerging technologies.<\/p>\n

“This will help us provide opportunities for people to acquire skills that will lead to high paying jobs in our area,” then-Panola College president Greg\u00a0Powell\u00a0said previously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The college was also awarded $171,000 in December by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to research and design a new construction supervision education pathway.<\/p>\n

“Industry representatives consistently identified a strong regional need for mid-level supervisors who bring both technical skills and foundational competencies in leadership, communication, and safety,” according to a news release from the college<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panola College, which Niche ranked as Texas’ best Community College and best Online Community College this year, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1836,1704,85744,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-244931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-chronnews","9":"tag-chronstaff","10":"tag-chrontexas","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}