Projo Biz Blog

Richard I. Gouse, president of New England Institute of Technology, announced plans this morning for a 'green campus' on the site of the former Brooks' corporate headquarters building in East Greenwich.

New England Tech previously dislcosed plans to buy the vacant office building and 25 acres of land at the former Rocky Hill Fairgrounds in East Greenwich, filling a gap in land the school is assembling for a proposed campus.

New England Tech said it has entered into an agreement with Rite Aid Corp., which acquired Brooks, to pay $30 million for the land and a 285,000-square-foot building once intended to house the Brooks-Eckerd corporate headquarters.

The vacant building will be converted to use as an academic building in the first phase in a years-long project to create a campus on 200 acres of mostly-vacant land southeast of the Route 95-Route 4 connector. To be built "from scratch" in four phases, the campus will have housing for at least 1,000 students, as well as athletic fields, adminstrative offices and other academic buildings.

In a video presentation today, Gouse said: "Our history positions us to successfully complete this mission."

Gouse also announced plans for curriculum changes at the school to address the growing need for "green collar" workers. While N.E. Tech already trains its students in the use and maintenance of energy-efficient technologies, the classes now under development eventually will offer at least three levels of certification or degree programs in the field.

"While these steps are small... on a global scale I hope they are symbolic," Gouse said in his remarks after the video presentation.

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