Master plan to construct greenhouses and renovate Building L on the Verde Campus for agricultural use has collapsed: Is CTE “really” headed for building L?
The District Master plan, as adopted in concept in December 2013, recommended the construction of greenhouses on the Verde campus to accommodate the move of the agriculture programs from the Chino Valley Center. That plan also recommended closing and selling the Chino Valley Center. Click here to read the Master Plan.
Since that time, the administration has made it clear that the Chino Valley Center is no longer on the auction block. According to the administration, it is giving the Center more time to increase enrollment. The consequence of this is to abandon the original idea of moving the agriculture program from Chino Valley to the Verde Campus.
The original Master plan also states that as the nursing program migrates to Prescott Valley, building L was to be renovated for use by the agricultural programs that were anticipated coming from Chino Valley. It states that “as laboratories already exist in building L, the addition of agricultural classes will virtually recreate the Chino Valley Center’s main building.” That is also not going to happen.
So what is going to happen? In the 2017 March update to the Master Plan, the College states that building L is to be used for Career and Technical Education (CTE). (Recall that when it was built in 2004 Building L was specifically intended for this use but was found to be a poor facility for such training. It was then remodeled into labs.)
The March 2017 update to the Master Plan states the following: “Verde Valley: Building L has now been scheduled for a major renovation to enhance its ability to offer Career Technical Education (CTE) programming. We plan to do this work in FY19, giving VACTE a year to conduct their planning and to provide input to YC. Verde Valley Campus will continue to offer Nursing, as well as other CTE programming such as Viticulture, Enology, and Film & Media Arts. This represents an increase of roughly $3.8M.” Click here to see the March 2017 update.
So far we’ve heard nothing from V’ACTE or Dean Perey about specific plans for Building L. Nor have we heard from the College the reasons Building L originally failed as a CTE facility but it is now acceptable for such use.
Maybe someone should rethink the issue and come up with a “really” viable plan for constructing a CTE facility on the Verde Campus. Why not?
