November 9, 2006

Breaking ground for the new Antioch University McGregor campus at the Center for Business and Education last Thursday were, from left, Dan Young, Community Resources; Thomas McNicol, Antioch University trustee; Richard Lapedes, McGregor Capital Campaign; Phillip Irvin, student representative; Dr. Toni Murdock, chancellor; Arthur Zucker, University trustee; Barbara Gellman-Danley, president of McGregor; Congressman David Hobson; and Carol Gasho, Community Resources.

By Virgil Hervey

Although workers have been excavating the new Antioch University McGregor building at the Center for Business and Education (CBE) site since Labor Day, the official groundbreaking ceremony took place last Thursday, Nov. 2. Invited guests, including university trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, village officials, representatives of Community Resources, Congressman David Hobson, and other state and local politicians, gathered in a wind-blown tent on the Vernay property on the opposite corner from the CBE site on the northwest corner of Dayton Street and East Enon Road.

In her opening remarks Antioch McGregor President Barbara Gellman-Danley said the target date for completion of the building is mid-September of 2007. Other speakers included Arthur Zucker, chairman of the Antioch University Board of Trustees, Chancellor Toni Murdoch, Congressman Hobson and Carol Gasho, chair of Community Resources.

The common theme of the opening remarks was the partnership between the Village and the university that made the “Campus West” project possible and the improved town-gown relations that will result from its completion.

Other participants in the shovel ceremony were University Trustee Bruce Bedford, Gasho, Hobson, James Hoehn of National City Bank, Student Representative Phillip Irvin, Capital Campaign Co-Chair Richard Lapedes, Trustee Thomas A. McNicol, and Dan Young of Community Resources.

When it’s completed, the 90,000-square foot McGregor building will house over 25 classrooms, technical and creative writing labs, conference rooms for campus and community seminars, and faculty and administrative offices, Gellman-Danley said. Larger spaces will include a 250-seat auditorium and a 120-seat seminar room.

Interviewed in September, Gellman-Danly said the move to the new building at the CBE will give the school breathing space, more room to expand programmatically, and to add staff and faculty. Asked about current McGregor growth, she stated that growth in the school’s programs is “steady,” with some programs growing faster than others.

While the building’s interior will conform with that originally planned, the exterior will look significantly different. Just three months before the excavation began there was a radical change in design of the building, according to Glenn Watts, who is the construction project coordinator. Originally designed by the architectural firm Lorenz & Williams, the building featured extensive glass and metal and would have been “ultra contemporary,” Watts said. The current building will be constructed of red brick, and will have a traditional college look.

Interviewed recently, Watts said that budgetary considerations played a part in the change in the building’s design, since the original design would cost $16.3 million, a million more than the current design. In addition to the construction budget, there were a number of other considerations that went into the design change, he said. The original design, which can still be found on the Lorenz & Williams Web site, called for a conical section of glass in the center of the building. According to Watts, that feature would have resulted in extra expense to cool the building in summer and heat it in winter. Also by simplifying the exterior walls, which were originally planned as a scalloped design, there would be less cost for the steel framing and the foundation.

Cost aside, however, Watts said McGregor planners also took into consideration the feelings of the villagers, other potential CBE tenants, and the McGregor faculty and students. According to Watts, many felt the ultra contemporary style was not in keeping with the look of the village. He said the plan was to make the building more “warm and inviting.”

“We want people to feel comfortable as they approach the building,” he said. According to Gellman-Danley, the skeptics of the original design are now warming up to the new look.

According to Watts, the interior, however, will be more modern, incorporating high-tech electronics. He added the quick turn around in the design was enabled by keeping the original interior layout much as it was.

According to Gellman-Danley, financing for the $15 million project is well underway with the school having raised $1.8 million dollars in cash and pledges, $372,000 in grants and federal funding through Community Resources, and $12 million in bonds from the Ohio Higher Education Facilities Commission, to be paid back over 26 years from McGregor revenues. She said payments would be to interest only for the first few years. She also said they had received a corporate leadership gift of $200,000 from National City Bank, and other significant gifts from YSI, the Virginia Kettering Fund, the Iddings Foundation, and the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.

Gellman-Danley sees Yellow Springs as a retreat-like setting, a place with houses with porches that McGregor can capitalize upon.

“What the village brings to the plate is arts and festivals,” she said. She said she sees the McGregor/Village connection as one that is “layering on to what’s already here.”

The MIIND (McGregor Institute for Intellectual Development) series will be an integral part of the town-gown collaboration, Gellman-Danley said. Based on the Chautauqua Institution’s summer program in Jamestown, N.Y., it was specifically designed to bring the people of Yellow Springs and Antioch University McGregor closer.

“Any chance we get to promote the community, we will,” Gellman-Danley said.

This year two MIIND seminars were held in the summer and a third in the fall. Once the new building is up, according to Gellman-Danley, the MIIND program will run year round, although it will be especially big in the summer. She expects it to grow over the years and to be revenue generating.

The site of the McGregor building is on 11 acres that were donated to McGregor by Community Resources out of the 45 acres they purchased from Vernay Laboratories. According to Gellman-Danley they have a memo of agreement with Community Resources on collaboration on the use of the CBE property that includes two extra acres for growth. Community Resources Chair Carol Gasho said that it is envisioned that there will be a buffer of education-related businesses between McGregor and the more commercial areas of the park.

When interviewed by the Yellow Springs News in November of 2004, then Community Resources Chair Dan Young said that they were investigating the potential for providing the CBE with geothermal energy and water conservation systems. He also said they were planning to incorporate principles from the LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. At that time Young said that Community Resources would “seek out businesses that embrace” a similar philosophy.

In a recent interview, current Chair Carol Gasho said that they have had to lower their sights a bit with respect to LEED principles, because they were unable to get the necessary grant money. While Community Resources will still seek businesses that embrace the LEED philosophy, it will not be mandated. She added, however, that if a potential tenant wants her help in achieving LEED certification, she will be available to write grants for them.

As far as the McGregor building goes, Watts said that while they would not be LEED certified, also due to a lack of grant money, there are a number of green components to the design, including, but not limited to: motion detectors that will turn off lights when a room is not being used; timers on parking lot lighting; high energy efficiency lighting throughout the building; minimum water-flow toilets; and landscaping designed to limit the amount of water and energy necessary to maintain it. Watts also noted that recycled materials were being used for carpeting and tiling.

As for breaking ground on the rest of the CBE, Gasho said that all the environmental assessments, government red-tape, and funding should be in place by the end of the year, at which time there will be a signing ceremony when the Village signs the Project Cooperation Agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. According to Gasho, infrastructure grant money from the Army Corps and ODOT, along with a grant from a private foundation, will provide a little over one million dollars to pay for roadways, utility connections, and the Dayton Street sewer project. She said she expects the utilities to be in place and roadways in to a central point on the property by late next summer.

Gasho said that it was necessary to de-couple the McGregor project from grant process for the rest of the CBE in order to move it along faster. She said she felt that having McGregor in place by next fall would be an attraction to other prospective tenants. As for those other tenants, Gasho said that Community Resources wants non-tax exempt businesses. She added that their agreement with McGregor included a non-compete clause, meaning that there could be no other educational institutions located in the park.

According to Gellman-Danley, the McGregor lobby will be an interpretive center honoring Douglas McGregor, the noted pioneer in industrial relations who was president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954. It will make the statement, “This is the Antioch tradition and who we will be in the future,” she said.

Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com