Florida Keys Community College will apply for more than $35 million in state funding over the next five years to expand and improve the buildings on its campuses throughout Monroe County.

Officials are envisioning such new amenities as a physical education building that includes a gym on Stock Island and a student services facility in Key Largo.

"We want to have the amenities any other college wants for its students," said John Kehoe, vice president of Financial and Administrative Services. "We're looking out to the future of 2014-2015 at least for some of these."

The college will ask for:

• $5 million to buy land and $5.4 million to construct modern classrooms, labs and a student services facility in Key Largo. The college now leases space at Coral Shores High School for classroom space and sorely wants to have a presence in Key Largo. "There are currently no college facilities in the Key Largo area," Kehoe wrote in his proposal.

• $8.4 million to build a physical education and work-force training building. This building would have several functions: to provide more classrooms for physical education courses, allowing the college to introduce two-year degrees in sports medicine and technology. Work-force training would provide space to train students for jobs in various industries in the Keys, including restaurant and hospitality management.

• $4.8 million for a new general classroom building on Stock Island.

The PECO money, which stands for Public Education Outlay, is the chief source of funding for community college construction, beyond construction bonds and other instruments. The funds allow the college to become more meaningful to students and visitors, Kehoe said.

"When anyone visits a campus or visits a daughter at college, it's nice to have a place for them to work out or swim or undertake any activity that makes their visit nice," Kehoe said. "We want to make sure students, too, have a place to enjoy their time here."

Other projects add to the college's ability to offer the training students want, he said. For example, the college one day wants to build an Allied Health Center in Key Largo where nurses and other medical students could train, even those from other medical schools or doctors' offices.

The Legislature determines how much PECO funding is available for community colleges once a year.

The college's wish list does not include two major building projects already under way. An $8.5 million dorm is slated to be completed in spring 2012. It's being funded through bonds sold by the Florida Keys Housing Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the college.

Another building, a $7.6 million marine propulsion center, is being built to replace an aging building that now houses marine propulsion and boat repair bays.

The 18,800-square-foot building will be home to computers that let students view wiring and mechanical schematics on computer-aided design programs and allow students to lift engines after boats are pulled under the building. It will have more painting, engine repair and fiberglass and woodworking areas and classrooms upstairs, college officials have said.

Groundbreaking is set for the fall, though the design has been sent back to architects for tweaking, college President Larry Tyree told trustees at Tuesday's board meeting. It will be finished in late 2011, he said.

The college has received all the PECO funding for that project.

jguerra@keysnews.com