Kirkwood makes space at regional center after Iowa City closure

CORALVILLE — Less than a decade into a 50-year, $2 million-plus lease agreement with the Grant Wood Area Education Agency for space inside Kirkwood Community College’s Coralville-based regional center, the college is ending the arrangement early — paying back $1.7 million to Grant Wood to make it happen.

That payment reimburses Grant Wood for the unused portion of the $2 million it prepaid at the 2014 deal's outset to cover the term of the lease, which was supposed to expire in June 2064. Grant Wood’s departure from the regional center frees up much-needed space in Johnson County for Cedar Rapids-based Kirkwood, which recently closed its 97,094-square-foot Iowa City campus.

“Kirkwood has been working to relocate the Iowa City campus operations to the Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa,” according to a resolution the Kirkwood board of trustees will consider Thursday to end the lease. “The space planning resulted in the need for Kirkwood to own the fifth-floor space, where GWAEA currently leases 7,800 square feet.”

A termination agreement shows the regional center collaboration officially ended June 30. And Grant Wood said it, too, will benefit by leaving the 2301 Oakdale Blvd. site.

“While we’ve enjoyed sharing space for the past eight years at our current location with the Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa, we have a mutually-beneficial opportunity to relocate the AEA’s southern facility to a new location,” Grant Wood Chief Administrator John Speer said in a message to staff.

The Grant Wood AEA has bought “a new space” at 2852 Coral Ct. in Coralville — a mile west of the regional center, just off Coral Ridge Avenue. It will provide 11,000 square feet and conference room space for Grant Wood, which plans to occupy it this fall.

‘Just made sense’

Grant Wood is one of Iowa’s nine area education agencies, created in 1974 by the Iowa Legislature to ensure children have equal education opportunities. It serves more than 73,000 students — including over 8,400 with special needs — and more than 6,000 administrators, teachers, counselors, nurses and other staffers in 32 public school districts and 24 non-public schools in a seven-county region including Linn, Johnson, Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Jones and Washington counties. It has three locations, including the Coralville site.

“We will still have around 100 staff assigned to our Coralville area facility,” spokeswoman Renee Nelson said, noting, “This was more about flexibility of our Coralville space, and less about actual square footage that we needed, at a time when Kirkwood was shifting its student programming. The timing just made sense.”

'Plenty of space’

The five-story, 101,000-square-foot Kirkwood regional center sits on nearly 6 acres of Board of Regents-owned land in its 500-acre UI Research Park. Kirkwood built there after signing a 50-year ground lease expiring in June 2064. In addition to traditional programming and joint enrollment courses for high school students, the Kirkwood Regional Center hosts one of the governor’s STEM hubs — created through the STEM Advisory Council.

Kirkwood aims to expand academic services at the regional center after in May closing its 32-year-old Iowa City campus, which had seen a 75 percent enrollment drop over five years.

“The Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa meets our needs as it has plenty of space,” Kirkwood President Lori Sundberg said when she announced the Iowa City closure. “Our research also indicates the site is a more accessible location for the community overall.”

A recent Kirkwood evaluation of the Iowa City campus found — if nothing changed over the next 24 years — the college would have had to spend nearly $40 million maintaining the aging property, which had a classroom-use rate under 40 percent in 2022. Kirkwood hasn’t shared any update on its efforts to sell the Iowa City campus, although it reported expectations it will save about $400,000 annually by doing so.

Officials this week confirmed Kirkwood is planning to integrate English as a second language, English language acquisition and more continuing education and associate degree classes and options at the regional center this fall. That, according to Kirkwood Vice President of Facilities and Public Safety Troy McQuillen, will “increase student traffic and will require the space currently leased by Grant Wood.”

Enrollment trends

Iowa’s joint enrollment — when high school students take college classes — has exploded in recent years, bumping up 6 percent in the 2021-2022 academic year from 47,262 students to 50,082 and nearing the state’s record high of 51,800 in the 2019-20 academic year.

The 2022 total amounted to 43 percent of all community college enrollment. A decade ago, jointly-enrolled students accounted for 26 percent of all community college students. Kirkwood in 2022 saw its joint enrollment increase 4 percent — even while its total enrollment slipped to 12,414, down 12 percent from the pre-pandemic fall of 2019.

Low enrollment in specific programs prompted Kirkwood in February to announce 28 layoffs — a move expected to save $1.5 million.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com