Ivy Tech will close Lawrence location and invest more near downtown

Ivy Tech Community College plans to vacate and sell its facility in Lawrence after more than two decades in the city.

Doing so is part of a larger plan to redevelop Ivy Tech’s main campus just north of downtown. The health care programs at the Lawrence campus will move across town when Ivy Tech builds a new, $38 million health sciences and nursing building.

The goal is to provide more clinical opportunities to students.

As IU Indianapolis builds out its health care corridor downtown — complete with a new hospital and new medical school facilities — Ivy Tech wants its nursing and health care students to be close by.

“With the centralized location of the big hospital systems in downtown Indianapolis, it made sense to bring the health sciences programs and nursing program down to the Indianapolis campus,” said Mary Jane Michalak, Ivy Tech’s senior vice president for legal and public affairs.

Lawrence’s health care facility will be the only location affected by the new plans. Michalak said Ivy Tech has no plans to relocate Ivy Tech’s public safety training center, also located in Lawrence, Ivy Tech’s Plainfield building or its westside automotive training center.
 

Most of the current students won’t be affected by the changes. Some Lawrence students said they haven’t heard much about the building closing aside from an offhand reference at orientation or a quick mention from a professor.

Raphael Edeh, who is pursuing a second career in nursing, chose Ivy Tech in Lawrence because it’s affordable and had the program he wanted. But the proximity to his home in McCordsville is a plus, too.

“I live 10 minutes from here right now,” said Edeh, 35. “My work is like, 10 minutes from here, too. So it’s kind of just a nice triangle.”

But Edeh is somewhat of an outlier compared to many of his peers in Lawrence. Despite its location on the east side, Ivy Tech doesn’t necessarily serve students from the surrounding area. Students from across the city drive to Lawrence for the health care and nursing classes offered there.

Ca Len Par, a nursing student, doesn’t plan to be at Ivy Tech when the changes are implemented in a few years. She lives closer to the main campus. Not having to drive to Lawrence would have been easier.

“I mean, it's closer to my place,” the 21-year-old said, “so that's a plus.”

Reimagining Ivy Tech in Indy

Ivy Tech has been at its current Lawrence location since 2003.

Today, the facility serves around 2,700 students, who are going through the college’s Fairbanks Center for Health Professions. It’s a hub for health care programs in Indianapolis, including nursing, respiratory care and massage therapy.
 

 

But, Michalak said, the Lawrence building was not originally designed for classes, and it needs around $30 million in repairs.

Instead, Ivy Tech plans to spend around $33 million in state funding and $5 million from fundraising on the new building closer to downtown, which the college determined was a better use of time and money.

“We get the benefits of having the nursing and the health sciences students closer to the health care facilities in downtown Indianapolis,” Michalak said. “Everything centers around bringing health sciences and nursing to the Indianapolis campus, and then there's a domino effect from there.”

In addition to the new health care building, Ivy Tech is also planning renovations to the main Indianapolis campus, including new classrooms in the North Meridian Center and improvements to the Illinois Fall Creek Center.

“Where we can upgrade existing facilities in a way that makes sense, we're doing that,” Michalak said.

Redevelopment in Lawrence

Ivy Tech’s plan to vacate Lawrence raises questions about what might replace it.
The college’s footprint is significant — a 300,000-square-foot facility on more than a dozen acres of land.

In addition, the new Purple Line ends at the campus, and Lawrence officials undoubtedly hope increased public transit will fuel foot traffic and business development.

There are no current plans for redevelopment, said Keith Johnson, executive director of the Fort Harrison Reuse Authority, which manages development in the Fort Harrison area where the campus is located. Johnson, though, said he is hoping for arts and culture developments.
 

 

“What students add is daytime traffic towards the kinds of things we do want, which is to have the fort be Lawrence’s downtown and an arts and culture district,” Johnson said.

Redevelopment is still in early stages, as Ivy Tech will remain in Lawrence for at least the next two years, Michalak said.

In fact, Ivy Tech is planning to transfer more general studies students and classes to the Lawrence campus while construction begins at the main campus early next year.

“We have to make sure that the construction at the Indianapolis downtown campus is complete before we can relocate all of our programs,” Michalak said. “Once we have everything relocated, at that point, then we'll determine what to do with that property.”

Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire at claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org or on Instagram/X @clairerafford.

This article first appeared on Mirror Indy and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation is among the financial supporters of initiatives based at WFYI.