The Muncie Redevelopment Commission unanimously voted to give Ivy Tech Community College property in downtown Muncie to help expand its Delaware County campus.
"It's a win win for everybody, and I'm just elated," Commission Director Bruce Baldwin said after the official announcement Thursday afternoon.
The Commission, which met with Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley, came together to discuss what would be done with the land that formerly belonged to the Muncie Star Press. The property was donated to the city by Indiana Newspapers Inc., a subsidiary of Gannett Company Inc. after the Star Press relocated to the Fisher Building on South High Street.
That facility has been in the possession of the city since February 2007, and $250,000 has been spent in the demolition of buildings on that property. Now, after two years, the city will be turning over the keys to Ivy Tech.
According to the Associated Press, statewide enrollment of Ivy Tech Community College is up 10.3 percent, with a total of 77,013 students. The Muncie campus has had a 30 percent enrollment increase, which amounts to about 1,400 students.
"When a door closes, another door opens, and the difference between those who succeed and those who don't is who walks through that door," Muncie Mayor Sharon McShurley said about using the Star Press' former facility. "If we don't get our kids to graduate from high school and college we will not compete with the rest of the world."
Early in the Thursday afternoon meeting, the proposal was met with some resistance in respect to the affect this new facility would have on the property taxes of local downtown business.
"I have a concern about it, I have a real concern about it," Ken Hughes, a member of the Muncie Redevelopment Commission, said. "And I feel the whole Board should be concerned about it." After the Mayor voiced her approval of the project, the Commission voted all in favor and the first motion was from Hughes.
Chairman of the Ivy Tech Foundation Ron Fauquher announced that there is also an agreement with the city for Ivy Tech to buy a building on Franklin and Main streets that formerly housed the Whitinger Co. offices, as well as purchase a small lot from Mike Lunsford between the Star Press and Whitinger properties. If the Ivy Tech Foundation Board of Directors approves these new proposals, these will be the fourth and fifth buildings acquired by Ivy Tech's Delaware County campus. In August, part of the downtown Fisher Building was donated to the Ivy Tech Foundation, and the culinary program was expanded to the Patterson Building in July.
Gail Chesterfield, the chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College in the East Central Indiana region said that this project would bring businesses to Muncie.
"These students are going to need things like food, housing and, not only are our students coming, but also our faculty and staff," she said. "You're bringing people into the community who will be paying taxes."
"We are anticipating potentially 2,500 to 3,000 students in the next five years," Chesterfield added. "You could very easily say that if we bring these students to the downtown that there will be fifteen to twenty new jobs as a part of this campus."
Mayor McShurley said the expansion of Ivy Tech will help draw business to Muncie in the long-term.
"It's fabulous, it's dearly needed and it's a dream coming true," she said. "Ultimately, we want an educated workforce and to be able to tell the world, 'Put your company in our city.'"
Aly Brumback contributed to this story.
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