Centralia Community College Students ~ You’re Invited Downtown

One of the most wonderful assets of the community of Centralia, Washington is the existence of Centralia Community College.  Centralia College is the oldest continuously operating community college in the state of Washington. Founded in 1925, the college has a rich heritage of professional, technical, transfer, and basic skills programs serving the community. The college has an enrollment of approximately 10,444 head count with 2,580 FTEs. There are approximately 212 full-time employees. The college is located in the center of the town of Centralia on a tree-lined, 29-acre campus.   

10,444 people are involved with the college in the backyard of the downtown historic district in Centralia.  As the revitalization process of downtown continues the new Centralia Downtown Association is looking for innovative ways to connect with the college community and bring the student and faculty body downtown. 

  Currently there are discussions happening on S. Tower Avenue about creating a “breeze way” type of pathway to lead students from the campus right on to Tower Avenue.  If the pathway were to be created, this would perhaps lead to greater pedestrian foot traffic during the day patronizing the S. Tower businesses and increasing the utilization of the businesses located in the historic district.  

Currently the upper stories of the downtown area are primarily vacant or being used as warehouse/storage space.  One of the revitalization plan objectives adopted by the Centralia City Council in 2004 is to put the second story and above space back into service as living space and additional office space. 

  The need for student housing in downtown is at an all time high. As the continued efforts of building owners to rehabilitate their buildings increases, more housing space will become available.  Students living downtown will bring a new life and vitality to the downtown core.    Ultimately the proximity to downtown for student housing is prime - - living downtown needs to be a “cool” place to live to attract the student body population to move that direction.  As the CDA continues to create new focus on the maximization of the downtown resources, involvement of the Centralia College “community” will become further enhanced through this process.  Creating additional synergy between the two will make for even greater potential opportunities in the future.  

The Centralia Community College web site can be found at http://www.centralia.edu/