March 29, 2024

3rd Higher Ed Building Breaks Ground

Higher Ed Building
A 2011 conceptual drawing of an early rendition of a Third Academic Building at the higher education campus between Wildewood and St. Mary’s County Regional Airport.

UPDATE: This event has been postponed. New date will be announced at a later time.

The University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland announces it will begin breaking ground for the long-awaited Academic and Innovation Center at the now USMSM campus, four miles north of Lexington Park, MD.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and other dignitaries will offer remarks at an official groundbreaking ceremony from 10 to 11:30 am Friday, Oct. 25, 2019, at the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland.

The campus, formerly known as the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center, is located between the Wildewood community and office parks and the growing aeronautics and technology center at the St. Mary’s County Regional Airport.

Construction funds for the Academic and Innovation Center, also known as the Third Academic Building, are in Maryland’s FY 2020 capital budget. The 84,000-square-foot facility is anticipated to expand educational opportunities in the high-demand area surrounding the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, which is less than 10 miles south of the USMSM campus.

This new facility will include state-of-the-art classrooms, cutting-edge engineering labs, and USM entrepreneurial support.

It will also contain a 42,000-square-foot space designed for specialized research in unmanned and autonomous systems. This will operate through a partnership with the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering and the University of Maryland Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Site, already located at the St. Mary’s County Regional Airport’s campus.

The university’s Southern Maryland higher education center currently enrolls 282 students in 42 degree and certificate programs offered by five USM institutions. Additionally, four educational partners Florida Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Notre Dame of Maryland University, and Webster University sponsor 63 degree and certificate programs.

Other dignitaries scheduled to offer remarks at the ceremony, in addition to Gov. Hogan, are Robert L. Caret, chancellor of the University System of Maryland; Adrienne A. Jones, speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates; and James Randy Guy, president of the St. Mary’s County commissioners.

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