Campus to ask for $100k for city to finalize improvements

The Community Education Coalition plans to request $100,000 from the city of Columbus to help revamp the corner of the Air Park Campus that used to contain Ivy Tech’s Polling Hall.

The hall was demolished earlier this summer, leaving a 12-acre space to be redeveloped. Ivy Tech has now moved into the new Moravec Hall.

John Burnett, head of the Community Education Coalition, said that the $100,000 would be for the last piece of a more than $13.4 million project that restructured the Columbus Learning Center and the wider campus on the Columbus Municipal Airport property. The coalition made a presentation to the Columbus Redevelopment Commission this week, prior to a formal request for funds at next month’s meeting.

The funding would come from the tax increment financing district that encompasses the airport and would go toward infrastructure improvements, Burnett said.

The space on the southwest corner of the campus will include a combination of green space, landscaping, walkways and parking. Burnett said the goal is to make the space as inviting as possible for those entering the campus and authentic to the spirit of Columbus. The community has already raised $2.3 million toward the corner project, he said.

Design on the corner project is slated to start next month with construction expected next spring and summer.

Long-term visualization of the Columbus Airpark Campus courtesy of the Community Education Coalition.