SANBORN — Having spent at least $30 million to improve the campus over the past four years, Niagara County Community College officials Wednesday updated the Board of Trustees on what has been accomplished via its 10-year campus master plan adopted in 2007. Officials also prepared the trustees to start updating the plan by adding new projects to it for the future, as well as trying to find creative ways to pay for them.

College President James P. Klyczek said the school called in Robert J. Joy, president of JMZ Architects and Planners of Glens Falls, to explain the plan the firm put together. Joy brought board members up to speed, especially several new board members, such as president Bonnie Gifford, and Sheila Smith and Gina L. Virtuoso, who have been appointed in the past 20 months.

The accomplishments include the construction of a $19 million dormitory, spending more than $3 million to replace the roofs on campus buildings, giving the campus book store a $1 million facelift,  replacing windows and doors for another million or more,  gutting and replacing all 70 campus restrooms for $1.2 million, upgrading the Digital Media Studio for $120,000, fixing all roads and parking lots, purchasing a new and a more user-friendly campus sign system, and investing some $2 million in the college’s health and physical education facilities.

Still on the burner is the plan for a learning commons, a campus center piece that would connect the library to the humanities building. It would have a roof that would turn the outdoor courtyard that separates the two buildings into a naturally lighted “wintergarden-like learning commons.” It would be “an extension of the library and a comfortable year-round learning space for students to gather in and work,” Joy said. It also would reconfigure, modernize and increase the size of the classrooms in the Humanities Building.

“He’s really starting us on the update for the master plan,” Klyczek said. “Every five years, it should be updated, and since we are nearing that mid-point (in the 10-year plan), we want to get everyone up to speed. We want board members to know what has been agreed to and what’s been done. So over the next two months, we’ll be seeing what the board wants to do in the future as far as continuing the direction of the trajectory we’ve been in and what to add to the plan. We need to do that since about half the board is new since 2007 and needs to be briefed on what’s been done.”

Joy said Wednesday’s presentation was a review, reaffirming some major goals and expectations.

“We’ve been chipping away at our goals in a very successful way.” He said the board will have to address and reprioritize recent initiatives that were not in the original master plan. These include existing space that may become available for use on campus, particularly the large labs that will be vacated when the culinary institute goes off campus.

Klyczek said the school is still in negotiations with the city and developer David Cordish to secure a part of the old Rainbow Centre Mall for use as the school’s new Hospitality and Tourism School, which would include a culinary institute.

Joy said now the board has to decide what will happen next as far as improvements are concerned and try to find creative ways to finance the projects the board wants to continue pursuing and new projects members feel should be added to improve the college.

He said the county’s $1.3 million in greenway funding from the State Power Authority might be used to leverage some green-type projects that could fit into the program and leverage more money from the state to make it work.