MCC eyes expansion plans By Lawerence Synett TribLocal reporter

I taught Adult Ed at McHenry County Community College in the early 90's for a couple of terms. The pay was good, the students a lot of fun, and the staff was smart enough to hire me! Good on them! McHenry County is VERY supportive of the arts, the city of McHenry has a festival a week in the summer, and I've not even looked for the fall and winter - in fact, my cousin Kurt Ganzer's polka band even played there! (They were also featured in Home Alone Part I - pretty damn good polka band!) It's the JUCO's that can give a local community (or in the case of county colleges, the county - the skilled workers needed to handle the high-tech service industry jobs that the US issues one-quarter of a million green card "special skills exemptions visas to" to fill the "void" left by untrained American workers.

Expansion plans years down the road at far northwest suburban McHenry County College hinge on funding and acquiring more land now. The Board of Trustees recently viewed conceptual sketches for the Crystal Lake campus — step-by-step drawings aimed at keeping facilities on par with projected enrollment growth over the next few decades. The plans are a part of the Campus Facilities Master Plan created by Darien-based architectural firm Wight and Company. Moving forward with any of the plans would require additional land for new buildings, parking and green space. “We have the opportunity now to get all the land we need for the next 50 to 70 years because it’s vacant,” MCC President Vicky Smith said. “If we wait and are constrained, that would impede the concept of MCC being a college campus.” Three campus styles with different variations were presented to the board in mid-December. Option A followed the traditional quadrangle design most universities follow, Option B followed the university research and design park model, and Option C was a combination of both. Creating a college-like atmosphere is a top priority, according to Mary Miller, board chair. “We have to give student life a chance to increase and give students a sense of belonging,” she said. The campus off Route 14 has the equivalent of 4,100 full-time students on 398,000 gross square feet, according to Wight and Company. That equates to 97 gross-square-feet per student, less than all but one of the six community colleges compared in the study. Based on a 3-percent increase annually in enrollment, the college would need 574,000 gross square feet and 750 more parking spaces by 2021, data shows. That would mean 120 gross square feet per student. The board is expected to select a concept in January. That plan would then be broken into phases and cost estimates would be established. The MCC Finance Committee is expected to meet to discuss what, if any expansion, the college can afford, Miller said. “It’s the dream for the future,” Miller said of the expansion plans. “If we could get everything we think we need, this would be what we would like to do, but it is not written in stone.” Shedding a “back up” status at the community college has already begun. Officials are in the midst of a rebranding effort that will create a unified message about what makes MCC unique and more than just a fallback option for students moving on from high school. That process includes the redesign of logos, color palettes, key-marketing taglines and other materials, as well as a new pledge statement. “There is so much competition out there,” Miller said. “We have to get our brand name out there and move the college forward.” Administrators are also entrenched in legal proceedings to acquire a piece of land through condemnation and eminent domain. The 20-acre parcel was previously listed as an asset in an ongoing bankruptcy case of one of the members of GHM Trust, owners of the property at 9014 Route 14. The land would help square off the campus, officials have said. An overhaul of the campus’s cafeteria, kitchen, commons area and entrance at Building B is also in the works. Design concepts for the multi-million dollar project are being evaluated, and construction could start in the spring. Once renovations are completed, up to five more culinary classes a week can be added to the curriculum for students seeking an applied science culinary management degree. Despite a slight decline in fall enrollment, headcount at MCC is 32 percent higher than three years ago, and credit hours are 22 percent above those 2008 numbers. www.twitter.com/lsynett