Welcome to the Air Force Institute of Technology

Winter is not a typical construction season, but crews are working at the Air Force Institute of Technology even now.  In the year since its groundbreaking last December, Building 646 has taken shape.  Meanwhile, inside, the second floor of Building 641 is undergoing a complete renovation.

Scheduled for occupancy in the summer of 2008, Building 646 will increase AFIT’s overall footprint by 50,000 square feet.  The new building will support the growing AFIT curriculum by housing the faculty and staff of the Center for Systems Engineering, and it will also house classrooms, a distance learning studio, two secure classrooms, three breakout rooms, a couple of presentation rooms, and computer laboratory facilities that will enable AFIT’s graduates to conduct state-of-the art, interdisciplinary, Air Force-sponsored research.  AFIT’s command section will also be moving into the new building.

The work in Building 641, on the other hand, is not adding any space to AFIT’s footprint.  However, aside from HVAC and restroom upgrades in 1997, no upgrades have been made to the building since it was first constructed in 1975, so the renovation now under way was more than overdue.  The second floor is being completely gutted and redesigned to accommodate office suites for threedepartments from the Graduate School of Engineering and Management, conference rooms, and classrooms.

When that first phase of renovations is complete in summer of 2008, the next phase will begin.  AFIT recently received an additional $2 million in Congressional funding to renovate the first and third floors of Building 641.  The third floor will also be completely gutted.  The new design includes some office space and conference rooms, but it will largely be left as open-bay areas for cubicles.  Once the renovation on the third floor is complete, the School of Systems and Logistics is scheduled to return to Building 641 from their current location in Research Park.  Plans for the first floor are more along the lines of a “face lift” than an actual redesign.  The most important change there will be the combining of rooms 107 and 109—the two video-teleconferencing classrooms—into one larger, 80-person classroom.  However, both sides of the room will maintain independent VTC capability so the space can be divided in half when necessary.

Looking to the future, AFIT also has plans for another new building, Building 647, starting in fiscal year 2011.  That facility, planned at $16 million and 57,000 square feet, would house the laboratories and research centers currently scattered around the base in Buildings 168, 194, and 470.

With so many projects underway and in the works, it seems that construction at AFIT will continue for some time.  However, it’s all vital to the mission, helping AFIT provide better education for its students, conduct critical Air Force research projects, and provide graduate and continuing education to airmen around the world—officers, enlisted, and civilians.