Kirkwood Community College to sell Iowa City campus, shift operations to Coralville
Kirkwood Community College announced Thursday it will move out of its Iowa City campus and seek to sell the location, shifting all of its Johnson County presence to Coralville.
Kirkwood President Lori Sundberg detailed the Cedar Rapids-based college's plans and said it will move a majority of its Iowa City operations to the Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa in Coralville starting this fall.
After the move is complete, Kirkwood intends to put the Iowa City location on the market. The sale of the property is expected to save the college nearly $400,000 in operations costs on an annual basis, Sundberg said.
The 97,094-square-foot, multi-building facility has an assessed value of $673,380.
“The Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa meets our needs as it has plenty of space,” Sundberg said, adding that the college's research also indicates the Coralville site is more accessible for the community overall.
The Iowa City location opened in 1991 at 1816 Lower Muscatine Road, while the Regional Center opened in 2015 at 2301 Oakdale Blvd.
Cedar Rapids-based Kirkwood enrolls more than 17,000 annual students in 14 locations across seven counties. The Iowa City campus offered liberal arts classes in addition to English language classes and some non-credit offerings.
In Sundberg's message, she said the college faces a major challenge in figuring out how best to support the expanding needs of its students both inside and outside the classroom, while balancing its expenses and revenues.
"Kirkwood is financially strong today. However, we will need to get our expenses in line with our revenues to ensure our fiscal strength for the future," she said.
She also detailed the institution’s plans for course offerings in Johnson County moving forward. She said both for-credit and noncredit classes will be moved to the regional center, which will enable the college to continue to meet the needs of Johnson County while decreasing the operational costs of having two large facilities in the same metro area.
"We face a challenge in figuring out how best to support today's students both inside and outside of the classroom, while also balancing our expenses and revenues," Sundberg said. "This consolidation allows our institution to focus more of our resources on student support. By doing this, more students will succeed and become an important part of our regional workforce."
Kirkwood considers expanding partnership with Iowa City schools
Although it plans to leave the Iowa City campus, the college announced it also is exploring the possibility of expanding its partnership with Iowa City Community School District at the district's newly acquired facility on the ACT campus. The district bought the building for $8.75 million last year and said it would be used by staff who oversee district technology and the online only-school , for professional development and, in the long term, could become the site of career and technical education facilities.
Kirkwood currently partners with the district to offer dual enrollment courses to students.
Sundberg said in her message that discussions are ongoing with the school district and she will provide staff with further updates once the college has them.
"[L]ooking for new and expanded ways to work with our K-12 partner in their newly acquired facility also makes good sense as it allows us to maintain a presence in Iowa City in a more cost effective manner with current enrollment levels. The new locations, as well as the cost savings, will allow us to focus more resources to give our students the support they need to succeed," Sundberg said.
George Shillcock is the Press-Citizen's local government and development reporter covering Iowa City and Johnson County. He can be reached at (319) 214-5039, GShillcock@press-citizen.com and on Twitter @ShillcockGeorge
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Kirkwood Community College to sell Iowa City campus, shift to Coralville
