Kirkwood seeks bond extension for building projects

Kirkwood Community College leaders will ask voters in September to extend a bond issue that would be used to renovate an existing building and to build several new regional education centers.

The bond measure would be a continuation of one already in place and not a new tax, officials said. The Kirkwood board of trustees at a meeting Thursday approved putting the bond measure on the Sept. 13 regular school election ballot in Kirkwood's seven-county district.

“Taxpayers will see no increase in their taxes,” Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich said Friday. “It extends what they're presently paying for another 15 years.”

The $46.5 million, 15-year bond issue needs 60 percent voter approval to pass.

It would be an extension of a 10-year Kirkwood bond that voters passed in 2005, the college's first bond issue asking in three decades. That issue runs to 2015, and the new bond would start when that one ends, Starcevich said. The 2005 bond helped fund the Healthcare Simulation Center, Jones Regional Education Center, an addition to Cedar Hall on the main campus and the Horticulture/Floral Careers center.

The measure generates .20 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation. For the owner of a $100,000 home, the cost is about $9.60 this year, Starcevich said.

The extended bond proceeds would fund about half of the $30 million cost to renovate Linn Hall on the main campus in Cedar Rapids. Completed in 1969 as the first permanent Kirkwood building, Linn Hall has 200,000 square feet of classrooms, labs and offices.

The building needs classroom and lab upgrades, structural upgrades and repairs and a new HVAC system and new pipes, Starcevich said. With the renovation, Linn Hall will become the math, science and health sciences building, he said. Bids are due on the Linn Hall project April 28, and the Kirkwood board will award the bid at its May 5 meeting.

“The building originally held welding, auto body and auto tech,” Starcevich said. “It's never really been renovated to bring it up to classroom standards. We want to try to make it so it's usable for the next 40 years.”

Bond proceeds also would help build new regional centers in four locations. Kirkwood officials are in discussions to build regional centers in Marion, the Iowa City area, the Washington area and somewhere in the western part of the seven-county district, Starcevich said.

The centers would be the same concept as the Jones Regional Education Center in Monticello, which offers Kirkwood college-level classes and also partners with eight local school districts to offer college-credit classes and career and technical programs for high school students. This year more than 240 high schoolers have taken classes at the Jones center.

The location of the new centers depends on the interest of school districts, Starcevich said.

“We can do this much more efficiently when we're working together,” he said. “Every school can't afford the best welding lab or the best Project Lead the Way spaces. This sort of makes that possible for them to have the best technology at the cheapest price.”