Doug Schantz, executive vice president for Finance, Facilities & Operations at Clark State, said the college was in talks with the Global Impact STEM Academy about a planned expansion when a site survey and due diligence work revealed zoning had not been updated from an annexation to the city in the early 2000s.
The process entails approval also from the Cooperative Economic Development Agreement (CEDA) board, a joint entity formed by Springfield Township and the city of Springfield.
Schantz said this gets their “ducks in a row” for the land and noted the educational campus zoning is similar to other institutions of higher learning.
“It provides the most flexibility to us,” he said.
Josh Jennings, founding director and superintendent of Global Impact, said plans for a one-story upper academy building are moving ahead. The $16 million project would result in a 30,000-square-foot facility at Clark State for STEM students in grades 10-12.
Six months ago, Jennings would have described the expansion as “more likely than not,” and now said it is “very likely.”
“We feel confident that all these things that need to break are way are breaking our way,” he said. “We are progressing as if it is happening.”
If that continues, workers could break ground later this year and potentially open by fall of 2024, Jennings said. “There are so many variables that are out there in construction.”
Preconstruction services and design work are happening now, he said.
The STEM academy would be built on green space between Leffel Lane and the LRC building, and Global Impact would lease the land.
Clark State President Jo Alice Blondin previously said having Global Impact’s new building on Clark State’s campus will allow the two entities to collaborate on what Blondin the air mobility field. The area has invested in work on electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, called eVTOLs, at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport, where the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence is now under construction.
The Global Impact site at Clark State “will serve as a training site for careers of the future, and students can complete their degree at Clark State,” Blondin said then.
The upper academy building would include 6,700 square feet of science labs and 3,500 square feet of ag labs.
