Higher learning center coming to Portage

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

PORTAGE — On a foggy Thursday morning, it was “Let the construction begin” for the city’s new University Center-Portage.

“This building is a dream come true... an opportunity for citizens to get an education and find jobs,” Portage Mayor Olga Velazquez said as she dug in at what will be the entrance to the Work One offices at the southwest coroner of the building on the former site of the Dollar General Store on Central Avenue.

“Our kids in K-12 will eventually be beneficiaries of this,” said Portage Township Schools Superintendent Michael Berta of the higher learning center.

“We need to continue to think of this as a starting point for higher education. Students aren’t going to be graduating from here, but they will be able to find out what they want to do and then move on,” said Guadalupe Valtierra, chancellor of Ivy Tech. The two-year college will use the east end of the two-story building with Indiana University Northwest, Purdue University North Central, and Valparaiso University.

The city’s Redevelopment Commission is financing the $6.1 million construction, with $5.7 million coming from a federal Build American and Recovery Zone bond issue that will be paid off with tax increment financing district revenue and the commission’s cash-on-hand.

The 31,548-square-foot center will include science and computer laboratories and it reflects the influence of the Chicago school of architecture with expanses of glass windows and landscaping with prairie grass and native plants that suggests dunescapes.

Donning green construction hard hats and wielding ceremonial gold-colored shovels with Velazquez were representatives from Gough, Inc., engineers Short Elliott Hendrickson of Munster, Carras-Szarny-Kuhn & Associates of Schererville, the Portage Economic Development Corp., the Redevelopment Commission, and the Portage Township Schools. Also on hand were officials from the four universities that will share the 10 classrooms and two laboratories, and Indiana Work One.

The project will draw from the labor pool in the three-county area for construction workers.