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IVCCD approves interior renovation plans

T-R photo by Trevor Babcock Iowa Valley Community College District Chancellor Kristie Fisher discusses plans to renovate interiors across Marshalltown Community College with the IVCCD board.

The Iowa Valley Community College District approved plans for an interior renovation project at Wednesday night’s board meeting.

“This is the most complex project we’ve had to date so far,” Chancellor Dr. Kristie Fisher said.

The project includes remodeling of the lobby, yard and hall of the Iowa Valley Continuing Education building. Marshalltown Community College’s library and student success center will be re-done as a student hub. The Veteran’s Lounge will also be remodeled as well as all bathrooms and computer labs at Marshalltown Community College.

“It will be a big change for all the interiors here,” Fisher said.

The high range estimate for the renovation project is more than 3.5 million dollars, and is also the most expensive project to date IVCCD Board Treasure Kathleen Pink said.

A pre-bid meeting with construction contractors is scheduled for Feb. 23 with the official bid for the project due March 17. A special meeting to approve items in the bid will take place March 24. Construction is planned to start April 1 with a completion date set for Dec. 17 this year.

OPN Architects have handled the architecture for the project, and was approved by the board to handle the projection last year.

“It has been a wonderful partnership, they’ve done some really exciting things,” Pink said. “I can’t believe we have been able to get this much accomplished at Iowa Valley in such a short amount of time.”

Fisher discussed with the board the spring enrollment report, showing enrollment at IVCCD is 8 percent down from previous semesters.

“I think what we know is that it’s going to be a tough couple of years, and we have some of the COVID-19 relief federal funds that are going to help smooth that out,” Fisher said.

She said the district doesn’t want to spend too much time looking at the pandemic years in isolation, with trend data over a period of ten years being the focus.

“God willing, we’re not going to be in a pandemic in the near future, so we don’t want to make a lot of changes based on what happened because of the pandemic or derecho,” Fisher said.

Providing an update on COVID-19 vaccinations, Fisher told the board community college staff have been removed as a priority for receiving the vaccine having initially been included with public schools as having the same level of priority.

“There just aren’t enough vaccines, that’s just the reality of it,” Fisher said.

She said the district is encouraging any district employees with the opportunity to receive the vaccine to get it with hopes to still have some form of workplace provided vaccination, but said she doesn’t expect it to happen in the near future.

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Contact Trevor Babcock at 641-753-6611 or

tbabcock@timesrepublican.com.

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