NEW CASTLE, Ind. — Officials in an eastern Indiana county are considering whether to direct tax money toward a project to buy and renovate an old car dealership into a new classroom site for fast-growing Ivy Tech Community College.
The plan would use $1.6 million from Henry County's food-and-beverage tax revenue for expanding the state college in New Castle.
Ivy Tech could increase enrollment in Henry County from 250 students to 1,000 students within five years if it had the facilities to do so, Gail Chesterfield, chancellor of the college's East Central Region, told The Star Press of Muncie on Monday.
While Ivy Tech would like to expand in New Castle, "we need help," Chesterfield said.
The college now leases instructional facilities in New Castle, including its hub, the Danielson Center, where Ivy Tech leases space from and shares space with Indiana University East, along with New Castle's high school and hospital.
"Because of its size, we can make the car place work, but it's not Ivy Tech's decision," Chesterfield said. "It would be a county project. They're the ones footing the bill, so to speak. This is something the county is stepping forward with to help promote economic development. We don't have the funding to do it."
The Henry County commissioners and county council are scheduled to meet in a joint session Nov. 16 to consider the Ivy Tech plan and other requests for restaurant tax money.
Enrollment at Ivy Tech campuses across the state has exploded in recent years. It set a fall semester enrollment record this year with more than 113,000 students, up 73 percent since 2005.
It expanded in Muncie with the 2009 donation of the former Ball Corp. headquarters that it converted into a classroom building.
Construction work also started last month on a new $4 million classroom building in a Crawfordsville business park that Ivy Tech will lease starting in early 2013.
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