College proposal a costly concern

Johnson County Community College considering $80 million expansion

? Johnson County Community College is considering an $80 million expansion that would include a technology center designed to give the school technology facilities unlike any other community college in the nation.

However, some college board members are raising concerns about the cost and scope of the project, particularly in times when tuitions are being increased and state aid to education is being cut.

The college, which serves 34,000 students through credit and noncredit courses, is used by businesses throughout the metropolitan area to train workers, and the new center would further its reach.

“It is quite a vision,” said college Trustee Nelson Mann, who is chairman of the trustee board’s facilities committee. “It’s one I’m very enthusiastic about.”

The preliminary proposal is divided into two parts. The first would be a $30 million building funded by taxpayers to house current and expanded technology programs. That part of the project is considered likely to be built.

The other is a more undefined proposal for “innovation centers” for technology and the arts that could cost $40 million and would be paid for by private contributions. Their scope would depend completely on how much money is raised.

An additional $10 million would be spent on fund raising and infrastructure to accommodate the project, according to one estimate.

Among the ideas for the “advanced technology center” are labs to teach biosciences technology, 3D-animation labs, and a virtual reality cave a darkened room where students could learn in a computer-generated environment.

“If we can raise the funds (for the advanced technology center), with the core technology building and with what we’re doing now, we will be a national site for people to come and visit and see what we’re doing,” college President Charles Carlsen said.

A Wichita-based consultant will tell trustees next month whether it is possible to raise the $40 million for the innovation centers and whether the community shares the college’s vision. If it goes forward, the centers possibly one building, maybe more would be built next year or the year after.

“We’re trying to be very careful not to get ahead of ourselves,” Mann said. “We reserve the right to stop it at any point. It’s not a done deal.”

But Trustee Molly Baumgardner, who has reservations about the proposal, said the project is less preliminary than college officials say.

The trustees recently authorized $16 million in bonds for parking garages that in part would serve the technology center a signal the project is going forward, said Baumgardner, who voted against the bonds.

“I’ve been with this institution long enough as a board member to know that once that first stop sign is run through, it’s not stopping,” said Baumgardner, a trustee since 1987. “That was the very first stop sign that we have now gone through.”

Baumgardner wants a public vote on the project especially in a year when the college plans to increase property tax rates by 22 percent. Tuition is scheduled to rise again in the fall, to more than double what students paid 10 years ago.