Tuesday, November 30, 2004
There are 3,000 to 4,000 adults in the career center's programs.
CHAMPION -- Trumbull Career and Technical Center plans to break ground in the spring for a $4.5 million to $5 million adult education facility.
The 45,000- to 60,000-square-foot building, which would be connected to the current TCTC by enclosed walkways, will consolidate all of the center's operations at Champion, said Treasurer Gary Ghizzoni.
"It's very good news for us," he said in explaining that TCTC in November passed a renewal of its 10-year, 2.4-mill levy -- providing a stable source of income to plan upon. It generates about half of the center's budget. For this year, it brought in about $5.8 million.
Tentative date
A completion date of August 2006 is tentative.
Adult education is now centered at the former Gordon D. James Career Center in Lordstown, where TCTC's four-year lease will expire in about a year-and-a-half.
Also to move to the new building from TCTC's current Champion building is the Northeast Ohio Management Information Network, which serves as a computer-services hub for 31 school districts in Trumbull and Ashtabula counties.
The new building will face the state Route 5 Warren Bypass and be on the far east end of Educational Highway.
TCTC serves 19 of Trumbull County's 20 school districts. It has 980 high school juniors and seniors who generate state funds for the operation.
There are 3,000 to 4,000 adults attending day and night, many for job retraining.
At capacity
New programs and changing requirements over the years have pushed TCTC to capacity, but that's not why a new building for adult education is happening now.
"It's not that they've outgrown Gordon James Career Center," Ghizzoni said. "We're paying decent money out there every year. If we're going to continue paying that large sum of money, we might as well pay it on our own building."
TCTC is paying about $240,000 for the space this year, he said.
Also, "the total facility could be on one campus again."
The career center is in its 28th year of existence. In 2002, TCTC and Lordstown officials worked out a plan to use the James building for adult programs. Students who formerly attended James from Weathersfield, McDonald, Niles and Lordstown were accepted into TCTC. Howland's school board decided to send its students to Ashtabula Joint Vocational School instead.
Lordstown schools are now contemplating other uses for the building.