BENTONVILLE -- The Northwest Arkansas Community College Board on Monday approved plans for a new building on campus despite opposition from two members.
The board voted 6-2 in favor of what administrators are calling an "integrated design" building to provide space for and encourage collaboration among those in the arts, entrepreneurial and workforce development departments.
College facilities
Northwest Arkansas Community College has opened four new or renovated buildings on campus in the past 10 years. The last one to open was the National Child Protection Training Center, a renovated building, in 2014.
Source: Staff report
The facility will be built in the middle of campus, just west of the Becky Paneitz Student Center. It's a site designated for a building under a campus master plan approved in 2014.
Debi Buckley, vice president of finance and administration, said she expects the building will be about 16,000 square feet and cost no more than $5.5 million.
The college plans to pay for the building primarily by drawing $3 million from its capital millage account. One-third of the money the college receives from taxpayers in its millage district -- consisting of the Bentonville and Rogers school districts -- goes to that capital fund.
The rest of the financing for the building would come from the college's reserve and a line of credit from a bank, Buckley said.
"We don't think it will cost $5.5 million," Buckley said. "But what we have done throughout this process is basically to overestimate costs and underestimate revenues. Because we don't want to have to go back to the board and say, 'Oh, it's more.'"
Trustees Mark Scott and Joe Spivey voted against the building plan. Scott said the first priority should be the plan to build the Washington County Center in Springdale, a plan he said has "laid stagnant for several years."
Jorgenson challenged that notion, saying before she arrived in 2013, little action had been taken on building the center, even though it had been discussed for a decade.
Since she arrived, the college has bought land in Springdale, hired an architect to develop a plan for the center's campus, and held meetings with constituents to learn what they want in the center, she said. The college's foundation has raised $3.6 million of the $15 million needed for construction of that building.
"I think that's pretty good progress in three-and-a-half years," Jorgenson said.
Scott said there's a negative impact to consider if the public perceives the college has a lot of money lying around for a new building when other needs aren't being met.
"There's a reason we are not raising money for the Washington County Center very rapidly," Scott said. "We may have some disagreement about why that is, but I think the perception the college doesn't need the money is one of those reasons."
Tax dollars collected from the college's millage district can't be used to support building a facility in Washington County. The college has about $5 million in its capital fund account and officials can't neglect the main campus, Jorgenson said.
"I find it difficult to believe when the taxpayers say we're paying this for the purposes of a high-quality college that we'd somehow be hesitant to allow that to happen," Jorgenson said.
Scott argued again for other priorities, such as a "welcome center" for students.
"I've heard time and time again from students who avoid coming here because they can't even figure out where the admissions office is," he said.
Plans for the building approved Monday have evolved over the past three months. It originally was proposed as a simpler facility solely for arts education at a cost of about $3 million.
During a board retreat meeting last month, however, administrators presented the current plan for a building offering classrooms and lab spaces for students pursuing degrees as well as those in noncredit, workforce training programs.
"We've listened to people out in the community and that's why this building changed," Buckley said.
The building will allow the college to offer certain classes, such as oil painting, it can't offer now because its classrooms lack the proper ventilation system. The college has two classrooms for all of its arts courses.
The college needs more space, administrators said. The college was spending nearly $300,000 annually to lease space in Rogers for the adult education program before moving that program to the main campus in 2015. The move saved money, but put a squeeze on space, Jorgenson said.
Additional space will allow the college to enroll more students in popular programs, such as graphic design, administrators said. Projections are the college would receive $346,000 more in revenue during the first year the building is open, Buckley said.
Spivey said he understood the need for more space, particularly for the art program, but added he wasn't sure a building that could cost $5.5 million is the right way to go.
NW News on 02/21/2017