Wake Tech's existing Western Wake Campus, located in a leased facility in Cary, will be relocated to a new, highly accessible 34-acre site on NC 55 in Apex. The new Conlon Western Wake Campus will be part of the 1,000-acre Veridea development project that spans NC 55, U.S. 1 and the new Highway 540 expansion. The Veridea development project also includes single and multi-family housing, commercial, industrial production, and life science space, which are not part of the Wake Tech project. The new permanent campus will be just south of downtown Apex and north of downtown Holly Springs and will be within a few miles of most of the new and expanding biotechnology companies in that part of Wake County. Current Western Wake Campus operations will be relocated to the new site and will feature classrooms and labs to support degree, non-degree continuing education, and College and Career Readiness programs. The Apex location will serve as the hub for Wake Tech's business programs with administrative offices for the Provost for Business and Personal Services Division as well as an Entrepreneurship Center for the Small Business Center/Entrepreneurship programs and offices/workspace for the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship. The Conlon Western Wake Campus will also be a new primary site for Wake Tech's Simulation and Game Development program (currently located at Wake Tech's Southern Wake Campus) with specialized labs to support both the advanced programming and gaming art degrees falling under the Simulation/Game Development program. In addition, the new campus will be a site for an Esports arena supporting Wake Tech's competitive Esports team. Included in Phase I development will be a Western Wake Workforce Center with a central focus on biopharmaceutical training. The site will be a main hub for the BioWork workforce training program, as well as the necessary science labs (microbiology, biochemistry) and aseptic training labs to support the BioQuality certificate program and advanced training courses currently available through the BioNetwork Capstone Center. In addition, the Workforce Center will include flexible industrial training space to support industry customized training. The project may include campus site development, infrastructure installation, and the construction of one new building (to be named Fujifilm Diosynth Hall) up to 125,000 square feet funded over three years as determined by owner. Subsequent projects may construct additional buildings to increase the academic capabilities. The owner holds the sole right to re-advertise to other design firms based on performance, and overall quality provided during the creation of the Master Plan.
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