Ivy Tech receives new nursing building

By fall 2014 Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana in Bloomington will lease a new nursing building from the county for $1 a year.

The Bloomington City Council approved the structure’s creation at a meeting last week. The County will own the building, and it intends to have the building on bond issue for 10 years while Ivy Tech leases the space. At the end of the 10 years, ownership of the building will revert to Ivy Tech, Ivy Tech Chancellor John Whikehart said.

“This is an example of how the city and county cooperate to approve educational facilities,” Bloomington City Councilman Martin Spechler said.

Ivy Tech is expected to renovate the building and redesign it so nursing labs replicate a hospital environment, Whikehart said.

“It will provide opportunities in the future to locate another health science program in the same space, but it’s primarily for our School of Nursing,” Whikehart said.

In the spring, Ivy Tech will begin renovating and moving into the new building and out of the Connie and Steve Ferguson Academic Building, which has housed the nursing program for almost 12 years.

The new building will provide more space for the nursing lab simulation equipment.

The Bloomington City Council and the Monroe County Council both had to approve the new building for Ivy Tech, Monroe County Attorney Jeff Cockerill said.

The county created the westside tax increment finance district in the early 1990s, and the city annexed three pieces of ground as part of that TIF years later. The smallest southeast corner was annexed by the city, which is why the city and the county had to approve the building.

A TIF is a mechanism to help spur economic development where the development is not occurring how it naturally would, Cockerill said.

The Monroe County Development Commission will purchase the building with a bond issue, Whikehart said.

If Ivy Tech does not meet its commitments to the lease, one of which is to have the building open for classes by fall 2015, its lease payment could jump, Cockerill said.

Getting the infrastructure in place allows for better jobs to be available for people in the county, Cockerill said.

Follow reporter Mary Hauber on Twitter @mary_hauber.