COLUMBUS, Ind. — As Ivy Tech Community College – Columbus comes closer to breaking ground on its new main campus building, the college is also considering the possibility of a side project — revamping the entrance to the Airpark campus.
Chancellor Steven Combs showed two possible landscape designs for the area. One is what is currently budgeted for the building project and will cover everything needed for the new building. The other design imagines what the campus could look like with support from Ivy Tech’s community partners.
The second design could provide features such as a “brand-new entryway into the airpark campus and a nice drive and drop-off to the CLC.”
“That would tie into our parking lot and would modify our parking lot just a little bit to give us a more grand entrance as well, if that were to come to fruition,” Combs said.
He said that new parking is needed not just to serve the new building, but also the Columbus Learning Center, which currently uses the parking lot behind Poling Hall for event parking.
Combs also that once Poling Hall is removed, it will leave a “hole” from where the hall aligned with the CLC.
“The learning center and Poling Hall are kind of connected by a brick wall,” he said. “And behind that brick wall, you’ve got some infrastructure, you’ve got some trash cans. And so, when you remove Poling Hall, that becomes exposed. So we started saying, ‘What are the things that we need to think about with the CLC as we create this new building to make those buildings better align? And how do we fill that hole?’”
Combs said that the college is in early discussions with the Community Education Coalition and other partners to see if they’re interested in this endeavor.
For more on this story, see Tuesday’s Republic.
