LIMA — At a Lima Rotary Club meeting Monday, Apollo Superintendent Judy Wells provided an update on the career center’s building expansion project, which is set for completion in September 2016.
Wells said the $53 million project will double the size of Apollo’s campus and increase the amount of programming offered to adult and high school students.
New programming includes advanced manufacturing, which provides students the opportunity to work with robotics in addition to welding and machining. Wells said the decision to add a robotics component to Apollo’s programming was in response to the way certain industries operate in the 21st century.
“What we’re offering to the students is a 21st century learning experience,” she said. “For companies like Honda, robotics is how they do their jobs nowadays, so that’s what we’re going to offer here. This whole advanced manufacturing wing is in direct response to what industries tell us we need.”
In addition to advanced manufacturing, Wells said existing health care programs will be doubled and a brand new lab for sports fitness, exercise science and physical therapy will be added. The expansion will also include an extra lab Wells said woud likely be used by cyber security and/or computer forensics students.
Non-high school students will also benefit from the project, Wells said, because adult-education programming will double as a result of the expansion.
As of Monday, the academic, automobile technology, carpentry, information technology and health wings have been completed. The career technology lab and cosmetology portion of the building will be completed by the end of August, and construction on the adult education section will finish around Christmastime.
Wells said the key element to the building expansion is it allows Apollo the flexibility to grow as industries change.
“One of the biggest design pieces for me was to try to think future,” she said. “Those bricks, mortar, concrete — all that stuff is flexible space. That’s a big deal — to make sure what we offer and what we’re building is going to be able to grow and change and expand. I wanted to do the best I could to make this building last for the community for years to come without asking for more money to do it.”
Wells said the expansion will help Apollo’s students and faculty, which, in turn, will contribute to Lima’s economic development.
“I think it’ll keep workers here,” she said. “If we show that Lima and Allen County is the place to live for a good, quality of life, and that there’s great educational opportunity and that there’s great jobs here, then we’re going to be able to recruit industries to come in because they see the labor pool that’s available.
“It’s really a community effort.”
Wells said all of Apollo’s programming will continue to be offered while construction is taking place. Classes begin Sept. 8.
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