Courtesy OCCC
Floor plans for the John Massey Center. The building will sit right next to the former Child Development Center and Lab School on the southeast corner of campus. The CDCLS moved to a larger building off campus last June leaving that building empty. Construction on the new center started earlier this year. “The John Massey Center houses support personnel integral to the college including Finance, Human Resources, Corporate Learning and Institutional Planning and Research,” said John Boyd, finance and business vice president.

Construction on the new John Massey Center has been under way since earlier this year, said J.B. Messer, Facilities Management director.

The building will sit right next to the former Child Development Center and Lab School on the southeast corner of campus. The CDCLS moved to a larger building off campus last June, leaving that building empty.

Construction on the new center started earlier this year.

“We started right at the beginning of the year, doing site work,” Messer said.

“We’re stabilizing the soil and getting the compaction we need to start laying the concrete for the building.

“And we’ve been doing preliminary work on all the utility systems that run to the building.”

The new building was necessary, said John Boyd, Business and Finance vice president.

He said after the sale of the former building — located off campus near SW 119th and Interstate 44 — to Chesapeake Energy, the decision was made to relocate the departments housed in the former building to the main campus.

“The John Massey Center houses support personnel integral to the college including Finance, Human Resources, Corporate Learning and Institutional Planning and Research,” Boyd said.

“Relocating these services back to the main campus will prove much more efficient for employees needing assistance from these areas.”

Boyd said to the best of his knowledge, the sale of the former building was made for similar reasons.

He said it also was decided to build a new John Massey Center as opposed to using the former Child Development Center and Lab School for a couple of reasons.

“The current available space in what used to be the Child Development Center (and Lab School) is not adequate to house the personnel at the current JMC and would require significant renovation prior to relocation,” Boyd said.

“Further, using the current location with renovations would not provide any additional space for utilization by other campus programs.”

Funds from the sale of the former building are being used to construct and furnish the new one, Boyd said.

The former building sold for $2,597,506, he said.

The building was donated to the college in 2004 by former legislator John Massey.

Messer said although the ice storms earlier this year did delay the site work, the delays are not expected to cause any problems, and the new John Massey Center is tentatively scheduled to be completed in January 2012.