Malcolm X College Gets New $251 Million Campus

Malcolm X will be remembered in Chicago in a new way, literally.

Malcolm X College will get a new $251 million campus, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday.

The new two-building, 500,000 square-foot campus is part of the mayor’s effort to turn community colleges into a pipeline for health care jobs, the industry Emanuel says will be a major growth area in Chicago. The $251 million building will house a 1,500-space parking garage and will include state-of-the-art facilities to train the students. The new campus is part of a $479 million, five-year capital plan for the seven-campus City Colleges of Chicago system.

“For too long, the City Colleges have been off on the sidelines. I want to put ‘em back on the playing field,” the mayor said.

The project is expected to create up to 2,000 construction jobs at Malcolm X alone. Approximately 84,000 Chicago-area health-care industry jobs will be created over the next eight years, he estimates.

Other colleges in the area will focus on information technology, high-tech manufacturing, hospitality and business.

BET National News - Keep up to date with breaking news stories from around the nation, including headlines from the hip hop and entertainment world.

(Photo: Courtesy ABC News)