by Natasha Khairullah
Staff Writer
One of Jacksonville’s newest schools will mark it’s grand opening with a splash.
The Art Institute of Jacksonville is holding its grand opening ceremony at the school on Baypine Road Thursday at noon to mark the end of its first three months of being open in Jacksonville. The celebration will feature a 5’X8’ canvas which guests of honor Council President Michael Corrigan, Council member Elaine Brown, Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce President Wally Lee and Executive Director of Volunteers in Medicine Jeff Mathews will douse with paint before allowing community members to sign it with paint brushes. According to school president Erika Orris, the event is just the “icing on the cake” of the school’s successful first semester.
“The grand opening is just the end of the three-month period of the community getting to know that we’re here, we’re here in Jacksonville and that we’re very excited to be a part of its community,” said Orris, who added that the total enrollment number is currently at 32 students.
The Art Institute of Jacksonville opened Jan. 8 in a three-story, 47,000-square-foot building near Florida Coastal School of Law’s new campus and offers two- and four-year programs in graphic design and interactive media design and a four-year program in interior design.
Orris said the school was opened to increase the city’s pool of skilled graphic designers and artists.
“We basically used a full-gammut of advertising (to recruit students),” she said. “A lot of it involved the Internet, a lot of it was through high schools and the media but we had a lot of students here who were already familiar with the art institutes and were glad to have a school locally in their backyard.”
Orris confirmed previous announcements that were made upon the schools opening about possibly building a nearby parking garage to accommodate the school’s growth.
“Construction starts April 1 on a 411-space parking garage,” she said.
The school will also roll out three new majors for the summer semester, including Culinary Arts, Culinary Management, and Digital Filmmaking and Video Production.
“We’re going to continue to grow the school until we can be 500 to 1,000 students over the next five years.”
As far as staffing goes for the local campus, Orris said the school is far from fully staffed.
“You’re never fully-staffed when you’re new. You’re always going to grow and add people. We’ll be staffing for our summer quarter over the next three months,” she said. “We have people that teach here that are from other areas that have moved here. We have not, however, had to fly anyone in here to teach.”
For more information of the grand opening, call 486-3000.