Highway disappears, water garden renewed around MOC
by Connie Yu, Reporter

     The sight of students is a rare commodity on this campus.
     Casual jeans and backpacks are unusual spectacles around the maze-like corridors. Instead, people in business suits with files and briefcases in their hands roam the two-story building.
     Offices cram the long, narrow hallways. The campus' few classrooms that escaped the invasion of office expansion contain only empty memories and office supplies for storage.
     Upon first glance, the May Owen Center seems far away from the lives of the students it serves.
     But since its birth, the 20-year-old building has been the heart of the college district's administration, the geographical center of the four campuses, as well as a communal place for everybody to meet.
     The Board of Trustees decides all major issues of the college, such as tuition rate, property tax and campus construction, in the elaborate conference room on the center's second floor.
     On the same floor, Dr. Leonardo de la Garza, TCC chancellor, and his team of executives handle the college's daily business, as well as mapping its future growth and development.
     But MOC is more than the White House of the TCC community; it is also a place many people, like Chandler Robinson, call their second home.
     Downstairs from where all the important decisions are made, Police Officer Robinson spends his days patrolling with a full load of hearty smiles and a cup of coffee in his hand.
     "Everyday, there's something interesting around here," he said. "You are dealing with the administration, with the public and with lost people."
     Robinson knows almost everybody here, and everyday he greets the flow of people coming in from all corners of the community. Besides the college staff, salesmen wait in the lobby to cut business deals; contractors busy around the building from meeting to meeting, and very frequently, ordinary people pop in to ask for directions, Robinson said.
     "It gets chaotic sometimes," he said with a laugh. "Now, nobody on campus is going to believe this; they think that we are just here drinking coffee and reading newspapers."
     Robinson may know about the building itself, but very few people know more about the history behind MOC than Dr. William Lace, who has been with the center every step of the way since it first appeared on blueprint papers.
     Lace, executive assistant to the chancellor, still remembers the old days when the administration staff crowded into leased offices on the 13th and 14th floors of the Electric Building.
     "There's always been a feeling that the administration should have its own building," he said. Since then, the $2.2 million center has endured the traffic noises from an elevated highway, I-30, that used to run right next to it, the fluctuating staff expansion in response to the continuous student enrollment increase and then the latest controversy around the City of Fort Worth's plan to replace MOC with a $120 million convention center hotel.
      "Since six months ago," Lace said, "there's a feeling that the building can be sold at anytime, and we will have to move to a temporary place until the new campus is built."
       After complaints from many hoteliers as well as tax payers, the city has halted its plan-for now.
      However, MOC in its 42,400 square feet has become too small for the expanding administration staff. Long before the city's plan went public, officials had begun their plan to build a new downtown campus to replace the current center.
      Lace said the city's decision gives the administration some leeway to plan for its next move, but the future of the center is still uncertain.
     Although the board has authorized the administration to purchase land for a new campus, officials are unsure whether the college will have enough money to construct and maintain it in light of the continuous shortfalls in state funding.
     An alternative to the new campus plan may be to expand the existing space in MOC, Lace said.
     The administration may consider purchasing the building across the street and build a skyline to link it with the MOC building.
     Either way, people in MOC continue their lives in the building they have grown used to.
     Lace lit up with a smile when he talked about his wide window view of the Fort Worth Water Garden.
     "You can sometimes see some wild life down there-not the squirrels or birds, but human wild life," he said with a laugh.
     Homeless people are occasionally seen bathing in the fountains, Lace said, and occasionally, young lovers are spotted strolling along the garden trails.
     Dr. Faye Murphy, on the other hand, said she volunteered to give up her window view for some peace and quiet.
     "I am spending a lot of time here," she said. "It's comfortable. I have no windows, and I don't care."
     In her 34th year with the college, Murphy said recent remodeling of the building has improved the environment at MOC with more efficient office space.
     "The building was worn-out, and (some) furnishings were old," she said. "Some were from the 1980s."
     Besides the new furniture, offices such as Sheryl Collier's are decorated with gifts traded through the "secret pals" program. The human resources department originated the program, in which staff members exchange gifts with their secret pals, to bring the MOC community closer together.
     Lately, many students are also getting closer to MOC.
     At the international student admission office, also doubling for the registrar office, Collier said she noticed an increasing number of students registering for classes and paying bills at MOC.
     "Up until last year, it was slow during registration," she said. "But we caught a bit of the hectic this spring-there were lines; these people were in lines."