Ivy Tech has included a $35 million expansion and renovation capital proposal for the Evansville campus as part of its biennial budget request to the Indiana General Assembly. If funded by the legislature, the project will help meet the educational, workforce and technology needs of Southwest Indiana by accommodating an existing need for more space for healthcare instruction and hands-on learning and the increasing and evolving automotive technology needs in this region. It also plans for future growth in high demand programs like Smart Manufacturing and Digital Integration.
The Evansville service area, which includes the counties of Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey, Gibson, Pike, Daviess, Knox, Spencer, Perry and Dubois, has experienced increasing growth year over year for the last several years – from 10,155 to last year’s 11,886 – and this realignment is a critical need to support this growth to reach Ivy Tech Evansville’s goal of 10% of the recruitable population in this region. The proposed expansion is expected to increase enrollment by more than 620 students and increase credentials by more than 460 per year.
This project aligns the college’s strategic plan with goals of Indiana leadership, the Indiana Economic Development Commission, as well as needs identified by TalentEVV, OCRA HELP initiatives and READI proposals.
Specific industry impacts include:
- Healthcare: 1,196 jobs
- Advanced Manufacturing: 2,500 jobs
- Transportation & Logistics: 850 jobs
- It also plans for new lab space for the Entrepreneurship Program, now capped at 25 students, but with growing interest; Visual Communications renovation of darkroom space into usable lab space, demolition of adjacent space to the main campus, now used for various college classrooms and offices, upgrade of outdoor
