Delta College Midland Center Opening Delayed
MIDLAND, Mich. — The opening of the new downtown Midland campus of Delta College will be delayed until December 2020, college officials say. The building had originally been slated to open in July or August.
Delta College Director of Facilities Management Nick Bovid told the college’s Board of Trustees earlier this month said that the bids for the Midland Center came back a little higher than expected, and that as a result, parts of the project have been put out for rebid. The new bids were due on Oct. 24.
“As a result of the delay, the building will be open for classes in Winter 2021,” a draft copy of the board’s meeting minutes reads.
News of the Midland Center’s delay was first reported by the Delta Collegiate, the college’s student-run newspaper.
The Collegiate reported that “the project has been delayed by Midland building permits,” however the City Paper’s reporting and the on-the-record materials did not support that claim.
“With big projects like this, it’s extraordinarily complex to get the timing of everything to jive perfectly,” City of Midland Director of Planning and Community Development Grant Murschel told the City Paper.
Mr. Murschel says that the delay in the construction isn’t any one person or organization’s fault.
“I think we all have a role that we play within the broader process,” he said.
Mr. Bovid told the college’s board that a fence has been erected around the property and the old garage structure that was on the site has been torn down.
Delta College Executive Director of Institutional Advancement Pam Clark said that the contributing foundations are being updated as the building progresses, the meeting minutes draft says.
The 30,000 square feet facility will include science and computer labs, classrooms, special-use training rooms, multi-purpose rooms and student services. The college says that the goal is to have approximately 650 students enrolled upon opening. Plans call for 35 on-site parking spots.
“From the City’s perspective, we’ve promptly attended to Delta’s submission and site plan package – they submitted a site plan package to us and building permits, and then they did have some amendments after the fact that we needed to review as well as part of our process,” Mr. Murschel told the City Paper. “Like we do with any project when we get changes or we get change orders or things like that after the fact, we still have to go through our plan review process — we can’t just put them at the front of the line. We do our best to get to them promptly.”
Total project costs are estimated at $13 million with most of that coming from local community foundations, such as The Dow Chemical Co. Foundation and the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.
“We’re doing our best to work collaboratively with them like we do with any other project, and we hope that they can open up and bring hundreds of new students into our downtown,” Mr. Murschel told the City Paper.
Michael Westendorf is the chairman and executive editor of Chemical City Paper. As Executive Editor, he leads the City Paper’s news coverage and editorial team.