SMITHFIELD — The Town Council tonight is scheduled to take up a request by a small religious women’s college to expand its campus in Greenville.

Mater Ecclesiae College wants to build a 6,900-square-foot library and a gymnasium measuring 32,000 square feet at 60 Austin Ave. The college needs a change of zone to accomplish its plans, and that requires approval by the council. The land is zoned for residential housing on two-acre lots. The college has been operating there under a special-use permit, but would need a change of zone, to planned development, in order to expand. The surrounding properties are residential.

The request has the backing of the Planning Board and of Daniel R. Janousek, planning director. Janousek said the zone change would not violate the town’s Comprehensive Plan and would be in “substantial compliance” with zoning regulations.

Jim Fair, communications director for the Legion of Christ, also known as Ocean Pastoral Center, the owner of the land, said on Friday that the library would hold about 50,000 books. Both new structures would be for the use of the students and faculty only, he said.

Faculty members are known as Consecrated Women, Fair said, and the students are studying to attain that status.

They are technically not nuns, he said, “but that’s the closest thing — these are women who dedicate their life to serving the church and Christ. They do youth work, counseling. Some are writers, some are teachers.”

According to planning director Janousek, Mater Ecclesiae moved to Greenville from Wakefield in 1998, having acquired the former St. Aloysius orphanage.

He said the college sits on 43.5 acres and consists of two main buildings. The site also has a baseball field, a football field, basketball and tennis courts, a picnic area, gardens and a historical cemetery.

Fair said the college has 87 students. “The maximum size we would plan would be about 120 total women there, both students and faculty,” he said.

He said he was unsure when construction would begin, assuming the council OKs the zone change.

tmorgan@projo.com