Muncie, Ind. (April 6, 2016) — Woolpert has been hired by Ivy Tech Community College to provide facility assessments and planning studies for the East Central, Richmond and Wabash Valley regions.
“We’ll look at buildings, parking, visibility, branding and image, and assess the general condition of their facilities,” said Bruce Rankin, Woolpert project director. “We’ll evaluate all the major systems: roofing, interior, mechanical, electrical, HVAC, (etc.), to help them stay ahead of their maintenance needs.”
These three regions house seven campuses and three instructional sites. Ivy Tech has 32 campuses throughout Indiana. It is the nation’s largest singly accredited statewide community college system and the state’s largest public postsecondary institution.
“We look forward to the insight Woolpert will offer the college as part of the master planning process,” said Amanda Wilson, vice president of Facilities Planning at Ivy Tech. “Information gathered will greatly assist in ensuring Ivy Tech continues to meet the needs of the Indiana communities we serve.”
As part of this project, Woolpert will assess Ivy Tech’s use of space to predict how much classroom, lab and office area it will need moving forward. The firm also will gauge demographics in these three regions to assess how well Ivy Tech’s programs and the distribution of those programs fit with current and projected locations and concentrations of students.
Dr. Andy Bowne, chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College East Central and Richmond regions, said the school is pleased to partner with Woolpert in the analysis of current facilities.
“We have a mix of new, relatively new, older and tired, and leased facilities,” Bowne said. “This process will yield a set of plans that help us best understand future needs across the regions.”
Bowne added that, from a very practical standpoint, Ivy Tech needs to know what the best long-range solution is for Muncie.
“We have a complicated arrangement with buildings downtown and at Cowan Road,” Bowne said. “This set of plans will help us understand how to best meet community and programmatic needs.”
Woolpert is a national architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm that has extensive experience in university planning, design and development.
“We understand how universities think, what their strategies are, how they are funded and how they serve their clientele,” Rankin said. “We’ve developed some methodologies that have proven to be successful over and over again. It’s a sound, interactive planning process, which is customized to each college and university.”
Woolpert has the capability to serve Ivy Tech from concept to construction, having worked on projects at dozens of universities from Ohio State to Duke to Purdue.
“Athletic complexes, residential facilities, rec centers, quads—these are areas in which we have focused expertise,” Rankin said. “Site development in general is one of our strengths.”
The facility assessments and planning studies for Ivy Tech are scheduled to be completed in late summer.
About Woolpert
Woolpert is a national architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm that delivers value to clients by strategically blending engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic R&D department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners like Google; operates a fleet of planes, sensors and unmanned aerial systems (UAS); and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and sustainable design. Woolpert’s mission is to help its clients progress—and become more progressive. For over 100 years and with 24 offices across the United States, Woolpert serves the needs of federal, state and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the United States Armed Forces. For more information, visit woolpert.com or call 937-531-1258.
