SHSU Shares With Citizens Ideas For Off-Campus Criminal Justice Facility

The Feb. 18 edition of the Item discusses the SHSU-hosted session that occurred Tuesday evening at the HEARTS Veterans Museum to let community members know what soon may occupy the land the university acquired next to the museum:

SHSU is looking to move its Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas (LEMIT) and Correctional Management Institute of Texas (CMIT) programs off campus to free up space on campus and to continue to evolve the university’s criminal justice program.

Al Hooten, SHSU Vice President of Finance and Operations feels it is a perfect situation since the criminal justice programs are running out of space on campus.

“The LEMIT and CMIT programs have outgrown their space and we can relocate them and provide them new space to help their program. It also opens up space on the main campus so that we can repurpose it to be a more academic space,” he said.

The construction of a hotel and conference center was also discussed. All of Huntsville will be able to use that building, not just the members of the criminal justice programs.

The focal points of the session revolved around how the planning company would go about making the new facilities feel like a university campus and how to make it look aesthetically pleasing, as well as how the facilities will affect the neighborhoods nearby and traffic.

The planning company showed drawings of how they are looking to place plenty of greenery around the new facilities and make the buildings look as modern as possible so that it not only looks appealing to the eye, but that it has the feel of a school campus.

The people who came to Wednesday’s meeting had plenty of questions for the planners, such as if food services will be included on the new campus, how much will traffic increase, if the city will need to build new water and sewage lines and how close the campus will be to the neighborhoods in the vicinity.

Another planning session, that will be open to the community, will be taking place on April 17 in the HEARTS Veterans Museum as well.