Kirkwood moving Marion programming to Hiawatha building

HIAWATHA -- Kirkwood Community College will be moving programming offered at its Marion Center to a new location in Hiawatha that will house its Linn Regional Education Center. 

The Kirkwood Board of Trustees on Thursday, Dec. 8, approved an agreement in principal to purchase a 98,061-square-foot building at 1 Martha's Way from Transamerica Life Insurance Co. for $5.7 million. The transaction is expected to close by the end of this month.

The one-story building, located on 11.47 acres with more than 1,000 parking spaces, has an assessed value of $7.4 million. It was constructed in 1995 for Parson's Technology, a locally-owned software firm that was acquired by Intuit Inc.

AEGON USA/Life Investors, predecessor to Transamerica,  bought the building in 2001. It was most recently leased by PAETEC  Holding Corp., which is moving its operations later this month to a new 40,000-square-foot office building at 1450 Center Point Rd. in Hiawatha.

PAETEC is reportedly donating about $100,000 worth of office furniture to Kirkwood.

Kirkwood's Marion Center facility at 2900 8th Ave. will be sold. All of its programming, including college degree, high school completion and continuing education offerings will move to the new Hiawatha center.

Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich said the college's relationship with Transamerica dates back to the mid-1980s.

"Transamerica has a data center building right on our main campus," Starcevich said. "They let us operate our Kirkwood Training & Outreach Services, rent-free, out of their building in Marion, and they support the college through three separate endowments."

Voters in Kirkwood's seven-county service area overwhelmingly passed a bond issue in September to build regional education centers in Linn, Johnson and Washington counties. The facilities will integrate state-of-the-art technology with cutting edge instruction.

The Linn Regional Education Center will serve students from at least eleven high schools, most of which are located within 25 miles of the facility. The center will draw students from large and small school districts, from places such as Vinton, Cedar Rapids, Marion, Center Point and Mount Vernon.

Local employers are being asked to complete a short survey, provided by Kirkwood, to identify needs they may have. The data will be aggregated and analyzed in combination with a survey that was provided to local school districts related to course and career academy programming needs.

Starcevich said a data center in the Hiawatha building offers some additional opportunities for Kirkwood. He said remodeling costs for the facility should be fairly minimal due to the condition of the building.

Kirkwood plans to locate its Johnson Regional Education Center on the University of Iowa Oakdale Research Park in Coralville. It has not selected a location for the Washington County facility.

Both the Johnson and Washington Regional Education Centers will involve new construction. Due to the size of the parcel of land at the Oakdale site, Starcevich said the building likely will be a minimum of two stories.