MICHIGAN CITY — Ivy Tech Community College’s current campus in Michigan City began in the basement of a former hospital. Now college officials hope to graduate into a new building at the same site.
The $16 million, 39,000-square-foot building is Ivy Tech’s No. 2 project statewide on its capital improvements list. Now it’s a matter of selling the General Assembly and State Budget Committee on the idea.
“Ivy Tech really pays attention to Michigan City,” Chancellor Aco Sikoski said.
“We are doing our due diligence, absolutely,” Site Director Marcos Rodriguez said.
The existing building, almost 67,000 square feet, would be razed at a cost of about $8 million after the new building is completed. That allows classes to continue at the site until the new building is ready.
The new building would be closer to Franklin Street, with parking behind it.
The current structure has issues. “We are using only approximately one-third,” Sikoski said. The remainder is unusable.
“Just to remodel, you are talking about these 10-inch concrete walls. There’s no way you’re going to move it just to move a wall.”
Those space constraints are a problem. A psychology class this term had 24 students enrolled, but the classroom it was originally assigned to could only serve 14 students. Switching rooms in the new building would be much easier.
“The offices are basically patient rooms. They’re so small and being chopped. We need no more spaces like that. We need rather to be more open,” he said.
Infrastructure problems
Another obstacle is the infrastructure, everything from HVAC to water pipes. “Everything is so old that it’s getting almost daily repair,” Sikoski said.
“Pretty much all the time, we’re having issues with water lines,” he added. “So now is the time for us to upgrade.”
The HVAC system is ancient. “I’m not making it up,” he said. “The valve, the maintenance guys have to close the chilled water and open up the hot water to go through the system in the fall. The valve is so rusted, they’re using this big pipe for leverage and they’re just hanging from it” to get the recalcitrant valve to budge.
At Ivy Tech’s 17-year-old Valparaiso campus, software controls the switch between heating and cooling.
Even though much of the existing building is unusable, it still needs to be heated. “I can’t allow it to burst a pipe there,” Sikoski said. “Definitely we need to maintain that space.”
“We don’t want to waste utilities. We are wasting heating and cooling energy for no reason,” he said.
The existing building has a long history.
Walters Hospital and Clinic opened Dec. 15, 1963. It then became Kingwood Hospital. By 1989, all 89 beds were converted to psychiatric units. A remnant of that mental hospital, a small padded room, remains.
Ivy Tech’s history in Michigan City began in 1968 with classes at what was then St. Anthony Hospital. In 1988, space was leased in the Halsted Building, the former hospital’s name at the time, Rodriguez said. Ivy Tech acquired the current building in 2010. After extensive renovations, operations began in mid-2011. The campus was named for Drs. Rade and Leslie Pejic.
LaPorte County’s educational attainment level is also a strong selling point, he said.
Tough time making the grade
Lumina Foundation has set a goal to increase the educational attainment level for the nation to 60% by 2025. It’s a goal that won’t be met.
For Americans ages 25 to 64, the foundation’s website shows, 51.9% had at least a post-secondary certificate or other credential in 2019, an increase of 10 percentage points over a decade.
Indiana lags but made more progress, rising to 48.3%, an increase of 15.4%.
LaPorte County, however, has a rate of 28.6%, up just 2.2%. Neighboring Porter County has a rate of 41.2%, up 6.8%.
“We are in trouble,” Sikoski said. “I’m not making that up.”
“We are sitting in the heart in this compressed air industry, and yet we cannot deliver what the industry needs are. This new building is going to alleviate some of those,” he said.
Ivy Tech is piggybacking on the Compressed Air Academy at Michigan City High School, offering dual credits to give students a head start on a certificate from Ivy Tech.
“For the industry, we’re talking about advanced manufacturing, smart technology,” he said. “That is the direction the industry is going.”
The new building would be much more flexible than the existing building ,with its walls so thick that it took three days just to install a new window for the bursar’s office.
About $70,000 went into a study to determine what the new building should look like, including meetings with faculty members to determine their space needs. That study also including preliminary designs for the building, subject to change.
The new building would have 15,000 square feet of classrooms and labs, up from the current 8,000. It would have 3,000 square feet of office space, down from the current 9,000 because of chopped-up offices, Sikoski said.
The new building would have a much larger lobby. The existing one is so cramped that crowds can spill out into the covered entrance.
The top floor of the building would be devoted to health careers. HealthLinc just announced a plan to build a new clinic adjacent to the campus.
Ivy Tech President Sue Ellspermann presented the project to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education, the first step for presenting capital requests. State Sen. Rodney Pol Jr., D-Chesterton, has promised he would champion this cause. Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary, is a member of the State Budget Committee, which would have to sign off on it after the General Assembly approves it.
“It’s going to take probably a couple of years” to complete, Sikoski said. It could open as early as January 2025 if everything is fast-tracked.
If enrollment in Michigan City grows, the new building is being designed so that it could be expanded either up or out, Sikoski said.