Concrete walls to a new College of the Florida Keys center stand along U.S. 1 in Key Largo as construction continues. Later this year, students and faculty will enter through the doors in what will be a new chapter for an institution that’s not only expanding its presence in the upper islands, but also extending its reach beyond the Keys.
An old commercial building, once home to the Shell World, was razed last year. Construction then started on a two-story, 38,000-square-foot building on roughly 2 acres.
Construction crews continue to work, and College of the Florida Keys President Jonathan Gueverra said they’re planning ahead and making sure they don’t run into any stoppages.
“We already ordered fixtures and equipment for the building just to make sure we don’t run into any kind of shipping delays that we’ve all experienced since the world has gone shipping happy,” he said.
A $20 million Upper Keys Center will be one of the first structures travelers will see as they make their way into the Florida Keys. Located at MM 106, bayside, the facility will accommodate students in programs like nursing, emergency medical technician, public safety, marine environmental technology and construction apprenticeships. The Category 5 facility can also be used as an emergency operations center in the event of a storm.
“Come August, we expect to be there fully and operational,” Gueverra said.
The effort to bring a facility to the Upper Keys goes back several years, when Gueverra spoke to community clubs up and down the Keys regarding a bigger and better facility in the Upper Keys. It kicked into motion in August 2018 when the college purchased commercial property in the old Shell World. A deal the college could afford was inked between Gueverra and owners Jim and Cyrie Waterman.
With the purchase complete and a project in motion, Gueverra said they began to eliminate what he called an “education desert for people in Key Largo.” The new facility will replace the college’s increasingly limited space at Coral Shores High School and allow the college to double its capacity to serve more than 300 students annually.
“It’s always gratifying when you have watched something take shape from sort of a visionary idea to a more tangible state, and ultimately see that vision come through,” Gueverra said.
A $16 million grant through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration was critical for the Upper Keys Center, along with several million in donations from private and public sources. In January 2020, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay presented Gueverra with a $100,000 check. Money came from drug-related funds.
The $20 million project received support with a $16 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, as well as other public and private donations. JIM McCARTHY/Keys Weekly 
The College of the Florida Keys’ campus in Key Largo is under construction. JIM McCARTHY/Keys Weekly 
The shell of the new College of the Florida Keys campus in Key Largo is built. JIM McCARTHY/Keys Weekly
In March 2020, the board of county commissioners voted to allocate $250,000 for the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years toward the Upper Keys Center.
“The importance of that is not just the money that we got. The importance of that was the relationship, because it says that here are individuals and entities who can and will work together,” Gueverra said.
In spite of the pandemic, the College of the Florida Keys had its highest enrollment in some eight years. Gueverra said there was a 7% to 8% increase in enrollment between 2019 and 2020. Moving into a new year, he said, that trend continues.
“If you look around at the rest of the country and state colleges within our sector, you’re hearing a lot that they’re not increasing in terms of the students they serve. That’s not the case for us,” he said. “We’re bursting at the seams in things like nursing. For the first time in the college’s history, we literally have to turn people away from our nursing program.”
The college plans to expand five existing programs in the Upper Keys: nursing, emergency medical technician, marine environmental technology, public safety (law enforcement and corrections academies), and apprenticeships. In addition, the college plans to develop new programs there, including: marine resource management, paramedic, pharmacy technician, phlebotomy and construction technologies.
“I suspect that when that campus is running, a couple years into it, we’ll be running pretty close to seven days a week just to keep up with demand,” Gueverra said.
