Butler County Community College (BC3) will be closing its BC3 @ LindenPointe campus for in-person classes.

Hermitage Commissioner John Moroco confirmed the closing to 21 News after reaching out for comment Tuesday.

The school publicly announced Wednesday that in-person classes will be discontinued for the community college satellite campus beginning in August 2025, but will remain operational through the spring and summer 2025 semesters.

In the announcement, BC3 says that an 85% decrease in enrollment over the past decade, with the "sharpest decline" in the 2020-2021 school year, is to blame. At the start of the fall 2024 semester just 45 students were enrolled for in-person instruction, compared to 300 students in 2014.

The announcement also states that the school will work to smoothly transition current students of BC3 @ LindenPointe to either online courses or classes within one of their other locations.

The LindenPointe campus currently employs 3 full-time teaching faculty and 12 part-time adjunct faculty, according to Jessoca Matonak, Executive Director of Communications and Marketing at BC3. All were notified Wednesday morning of the closure.

"BC3 is in the process of exploring reassignment opportunities for faculty and staff employed at BC3 @ LindenPointe. The college is assessing areas that need support and with the greatest growth potential," a statement from the college reads in part.

The original announcement from BC3 also notes it will "continue serving Mercer County, through online programs and classes, workforce training and high school dual enrollment."

Hermitage Director of Business and Community Development Mark Longietti tells 21 News that the city remains hopeful about continuing educational partnerships hosted through BC3's online education.

"There's about 100 people in Mercer County that continue to take at least one online course at BC3," Longietti said. "That will continue. So we're very pleased about that."

Additionally, the city is beginning discussions of possible uses for the campus and its surrounding property, following its closure.

"We think there's a real chance to repurpose that building. Penn Northwest Development, our lead economic developing agency, has been talking through that. On our end, we just made changes last year to allow for multi-family housing at LindenPointe, and we're getting a lot of interest from local developers and builders," Longietti detailed.

All other BC3 locations will remain open and continue accepting new students for the fall 2025 semester and beyond.

Download the WFMJ app for your Apple or Android smartphone or tablet to get our push alerts as news happens.