The board approved the plans and specifications for the Budget Host Asbestos Removal Project so that the facility can be demolished during the winter. The college bought the Budget Host Inn and its land in December for $1,450,000.

“We wanted to do it this summer,” ICCC President Dan Kinney said of the asbestos removal. “Well, we found out schools have a lot of asbestos in them that gets removed in the summer, so if we waited until after school started, it’d be a lot cheaper.”

The school will solicit two separate bids for the project — one for asbestos removal and one for demolition, as not many companies do both, Kinney said.

Combined, the project’s two aspects are estimated to cost around $500,000.

Kinney also said the amount of asbestos in the building is more than the school leaders had anticipated.

“We had a company come in and test it and found out that there is a lot more asbestos in that facility than we had originally predicted,” he said. “Because there was so much construction on phases over there in different years, so there was more asbestos than we had originally thought it would be.”

Once the asbestos is removed from the building and it is able to be demolished, the college plans on turning the land into a green space.

“We don’t have an immediate use for it, but we know that someday we will,” Kinney said.