Skilled Trades Center approved with Dec. 2026 completion

Up to $6 million has been approved to go toward Southwestern Community College’s new Skilled Trade Center, the second project to come to fruition from SWCC’s long-term master facilities plan presented last October.

The center will be a 15,040-square-feet facility placed east of the existing Tech Center II buliding, with space dedicated to a 2,000-square-feet carpentry and trades lab, a 3,800-square-feet electrical technology lab and a 1,342-square-feet emergency management services lab, including space to house the program’s ambulance. Other space will include regular classrooms and a student lounge.

These programs were originally hosted in the Agricultural Sciences Center. However, with the addition of the CDL program, the first project in the college’s master facilities plan, the space is no longer able to accommodate these students.

SWCC Vice President of Economic Development Wayne Pantini presented the newest prices and tentative schedule for the Skilled Trades Center to the SWCC Board of Trustees Tuesday, with board members excited to start another project.

“Many different revisions that Shive Hattery had presented to us over the last several months. Now they’ve got that honed down and they were able to generate a probable cost of construction a little over $5.3 million,” Pantini said. “In addition to that, there will be approximately $683,000 in soft cost, and that is specific to the engineering fees from the Shive Hattery and Garden & Associates, who will also be doing the engineering and construction management of the pavement for the parking lot for the facility out front.”

The two costs bring the total expected price for the project to $6,005,864. Bids will not be open until Jan. 28, following a public hearing and pre-bid meetings.

Of the $6 million, $1 million is coming from a Career Academy Incentive Fund Grant the college received February from the Iowa Department of Education. Another $2.4 million will come from the college’s ACE Infrastructure fund.

“Each year, every community college receives a $400,000 infrastructure fund from the legislature. What’s nice about that is we’re able to accrue multiple years to go toward a project,” Pantini said. “The last major project we did out of [the ACE fund] was the agricultural science center and we used some for our science lab and instructional center. That is one of the sorts of funds we’ve been able to accrue for several years now.”

The remaining $2.6 million will come from the college’s Fund 7 Physical Plant fund, which is mostly generated via local taxes and levies. The amount taken from the Physical Plant fund may be reduced contingent on fundraising from the major gifts campaign.

A public hearing regarding this project will be held at the December SWCC board meeting, scheduled for Dec. 9 at 5:30 p.m. Bids will be open in late January and awarded at the February SWCC board meeting. Construction is tentatively set to begin in March or April, with a completion date in December.