Allen Community College will break ground March 4 on its new Career and Technical Education facility.
A ceremonial first dig will feature Allen’s Board of Trustees as well as other dignitaries involved in the $12 million construction project.
The ceremony will be at 4 p.m. at the building site at the north edge of the Iola campus.
Work has already begun on the Iola campus’s new maintenance facility.
A PENDING renovation to a city water tower along Miller Road became a topic of discussion on two fronts at Tuesday’s trustees meeting.
David Lee, a county commissioner and former college trustee, spoke on behalf of his family’s New Wave Communications in LaHarpe, which has equipment atop the tower necessary to offer wireless internet service to the Iola area.
As renovations occur — the interior will be refurbished and the exterior cleared of lead paint and then repainted — New Wave will have to find another location for its transmitters, Lee explained.
The company’s best option is to use a temporary tower, likely on a trailer of some sort, Lee said, which is why the college is in the picture.
New Wave would like to park the trailer on college property near Miller Road.
Trustees voiced no objections, but asked for more specifics.
“I don’t have a big concern, other than liability,” Trustee Corey Schinstock said. “We need to get information on what you’re thinking so we can plan on what’s out there and figure out logistically what will work.”
Lee had no qualms, and promised to return with specifics.
Speaking of the water tower, Schinstock — who also serves as Iola’s assistant city administrator — said the college may have an opening for a novel marketing tool as the structure is repainted.
For a nominal fee — Schinstock guessed the price would be about $5,000 — the college could have its logo painted on the tower’s exterior when it’s repainted.
“I just thought it’d be a neat idea,” Schinstock said, adding USD 257 also could have its logo painted on the other side.
The idea stemmed from after the city refurbished another water tower on Oak Street about two years ago.
