It quickly moved into bigger accommodations in the BioScience and Health Sciences Building. It emerged as the only independent testing facility of its kind in the United States.

It is also the sole source testing lab for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. That means the lab is the place where fuels to be used all across Iowa are tested to make sure they meet state standards.

The lab’s next big growth spurt got a formal start Monday afternoon when college leaders plunged golden-colored shovels into a pile of dirt to break ground for a new 9,200-square-foot facility along A Street West.

The new building will enable the lab to add more testing equipment to its inventory and possibly become a leader in testing sustainable aviation fuel.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
Iowa Central Community College officials dig in with golden-colored shovels to mark the formal groundbreaking of the new fuels testing lab. They are from left, Don Heck, the director of the lab; Ryan Gruenberg, the college's vice president of operations; Jesse Ulrich, the college president; Jim Kersten, the college's vice president of government affairs; Bennett O'Connor, a member of the college's board; and Larry Hecht, another member of the college's board.

“Iowa Central has become a dominant presence in the biofuels testing industry,” college President Jesse Ulrich said Monday.

“We don’t plan to stop any time soon,” he added.

The new center will be built where a Casey’s General Store and the Colonial Inn restaurant once stood.

The Colonial Inn property was donated to the college in 2011 by Tom and Phyliis Cairney. The convenience store chain donated its property to the college in the spring of 2022.

The new lab is expected to be completed in August or September 2024, according to Ryan Gruenberg, the college’s vice president of operations.

ISG, of Des Moines, designed the building. Jensen Builders Ltd., of Fort Dodge, is the construction manager.

“I just can’t be more impressed by the work that Jensen does,” Ulrich said.

Gruenberg said the building will face west. The parking lot and front door will be on the west side, with the actual lab area on the east end, closest to A Street West and U.S. Highway 169.

There will be room on the north side of the property for any future expansion of the lab.

Don Heck, the director of the lab, said he and his staff may be able to start testing the octane and cetane levels in fuel with the addition of some equipment in the new building. He described that opportunity as “pretty unique, pretty exciting.”

“That equipment alone is going to be substantial,” Heck said.

The machines needed to do those tests are single cylinder bench-top engines, he said.

More staff members will be added if the lab begins octane and cetane tests. The lab currently has five full-time employees and one part-time employee.

Heck said he also wants to add equipment to test sustainable aviation fuel.

“There’s some very likely projects in sustainable aviation fuel,” said Jim Kersten, the college’s vice president for external affairs and government relations.