OTC plans to expand welding program, renovate industrial building with surplus funds

The August opening of a 120,000-square-foot facility on the Ozarks Technical Community College campus has freed up space for other programs to relocate and grow.

The graphic design and technology program will shift to the Industry Transportation Technology Center, or ITTC, allowing high demand programs already located there — most notably welding — to expand.

The OTC Board of Governors voted Monday to spend $6.9 million to renovate the ITTC. That amount includes slightly more than $5 million to general contractor Carson-Mitchell, Inc.

ITTC is just north of the Robert W. Plaster Center for Advanced Manufacturing, which opened three months ago as the new home for many of the college's most cutting-edge programs. The space also allows the college to offer training in a variety of new career options.

"The plan all along was as programs moved (to the new center), we would go back in and backfill the space with those high-demand technical programs," said Rob Rector, vice chancellor of administrative services. "One of our highest-demand technical programs is welding and so you're really going to see an expansion."

OTC offers short-term welding programs as well as an associate of applied science in welding technology.

Rector added: "Some of the existing programs that are already in there like the electronic media production we're going to upgrade labs and kind of rework them so they're a little more functional."

Rector said the design process for the ITTC renovation included input from the leaders of the different programs with an eye toward future growth.

Work on the ITTC building, opened 22 years ago, includes replacing floors, ceilings, lighting and furniture.

There will also be a collaborative, creative laboratory in the middle of the building where students can gather and work on projects.

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"What we're really trying to do is make ITTC a true companion building with the Robert W. Plaster Center for Advanced Manufacturing," Rector said. "They work well together."

The renovations also are meant to improve the "tourability" of the ITTC building for business leaders and prospective students visiting the center. "They can see students in there working and they can see things in action and we'll be doing that in key areas," Rector said.

The opening of the center allowed the college to shift nearly all technical programs to the east side of campus with one notable exception: Construction technology, which is still located in Lincoln Hall.

OTC Chancellor Hal Higdon said the renovations to ITTC will be paid for with leftover bond funds from the advanced manufacturing center.

"We bid the Plaster center at exactly the right time. We had eight or nine bidders and came in below estimates," he said.

"The balance that we had available for these backfills was more than I even had hoped for."

Claudette Riley covers education for the News-Leader. Email tips and story ideas to criley@news-leader.com.