New Student Services Center expected ready by summer 2013

Just two summers from now, Parkland College students and staff should find themselves in the new campus spaces they have been longing for, as construction plans on a proposed Student Services Center were approved on January 25.

Parkland's Board of Trustees approved Poettker Construction of Breese, Illinois, as general contractor for the new student center; Poettker's bid of $25.85 million was the lowest of six bids submitted. Projected at $27.7 million to complete, the center is being paid for through bond sale proceeds from Parkland's Campus Master Plan and through funds from the state's Capital Development Board. Poettker expects to complete the facility in about 15 months.

"The new Student Services Center will provide an identifiable front door to Parkland's campus that will welcome our students and community," said Parkland Vice President for Student Services Dr. Linda Moore. "In addition to improving services to students by locating student services offices in logical proximity to each other, this building has been designed to encourage student success by providing appealing space for quiet and group study and 

extracurricular events that enrich our students' college experience." Dr. Moore and her team, along with Physical Plant Director Jim Bustard, worked along with architects and contractors to finalize the plans for new construction. 

The 113,000-sq.-foot center is the answer to decades of space problems brought on by enrollment growth at the college. It will soon house in a centralized area all of the services necessary to recruit, admit, orient, advise, register, and assess Parkland students. These services have long been in converted classroom spaces that did not allow staff sufficient room to process records, advise students, and maintain a professional work environment. The center will also house the Parkland Bookstore and other service facilities that require more efficient traffic flow during busy registration times.

At present, Parkland student club or organization meetings and student recreation and socializing often are conducted in the open areas of X-wing (the college center), while group staff development activities often need to be conducted off campus. The new center will provide both additional large-group meeting rooms and a more spacious area for students to gather without overcrowding the X-wing, along with adequate food service space. The new facility will be built to meet the LEED-Gold standard of the U.S. Green Building Council for sustainable building design and construction. 

"It will be an aesthetically pleasing, yet supremely functional structure, housing our full array of student services, aligned in a coherent and navigable fashion, and designed to engage our community in learning," said Parkland President Thomas Ramage.

The Wednesday board vote to approve the project was the final step in a multi-decade administrative process, Dr. Ramage said.

"When our need was identified in the early 1990s, Student Service Centers were not eligible for construction cost sharing," he said. "At that time, our trustees, (former Parkland President) Dr. Zelema Harris, (former Vice President) Mr. Dale Ewen, and (former Student Services Vice President) Mrs. Carol Steinman worked diligently to change that rule and were obviously successful." Although plans for a new center were begun as early as 1996, funds for capital construction through the state of Illinois were not appropriated until 2009, putting the work on hold for more than a decade. 

"This is a very special moment in our history and I could not be more proud of the people that make Parkland College exceptional," Ramage said.