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Iowa Central to break ground for new student success center

Greehey donation, bond issue will pay for facility

A new student success center, to be paid for with a large donation and bond issue money, will be built on the Fort Dodge campus of Iowa Central Community College.

The construction will get a ceremonial start with a groundbreaking on Oct. 15, college President Dan Kinney announced Tuesday.

Bill Greehey, a Fort Dodge Senior High graduate who was the chief executive officer of Valero Energy Corp., donated $3 million for the center’s construction. He is expected to be at the groundbreaking ceremony, according to Kinney.

Greehey’s donation will cover about half the cost of the $6 million center. The other $3 million will come from a $25.5 million general obligation bond issue approved by the voters in February.

Kinney told the college’s board of directors Tuesday that the student success center is “probably the biggest project we’re working on.”

Once it’s completed, the center will consolidate veterans services, enrollment services, student advising, financial aid, counseling, health care, career services, distance learning and early intervention support in one facility. Now, those offices are scattered throughout different campus buildings.

The preliminary concept for the center, introduced prior to the referendum on the bond issue, calls for a 44,000-square-foot, two-story building.

It will be located where a parking lot now sits next to a pond in the middle of the campus.

Kinney said bids will be sought from interested contractors in January, with the goal of awarding a contract in February. He said construction will begin in the spring of 2019 and is expected to be substantially completed in May 2020. The center is expected to open in the fall of 2020.

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