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Cincy State weighs money matters with Middletown campus

Faculty members plan to tour downtown Middletown this afternoon.

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By Jessica Heffner, Staff Writer 12:06 AM Wednesday, March 23, 2011

CINCINNATI — Money matters continue to be the main concern slowing plans to open a new college campus in downtown Middletown.

At the Cincinnati State Technical and Community College board of trustees meeting Tuesday, President O’dell Owens said negotiations with Middletown for the potential branch campus are ongoing. The college is soliciting professional reports on demographics for enrollment and potential revenues of a Middletown campus.

The figures should help Cincinnati State better anticipate “what kind of debt (the school) can manage” as it negotiates a final financial agreement with the city, Owens said.

College officials are still compiling renovation costs for the five buildings Middletown acquired for the potential campus. Dan Cayse, Cincinnati State’s vice president of strategic initiatives and entrepreneurial development, said the college is being cautious by not releasing figures for the project yet, but added that “regardless of what those numbers are we will find a way to move ahead.”

Talks are ongoing between Butler Tech and Cincinnati State to arrange a cooperative agreement so the college could offer courses as soon as this fall, with a focus on culinary arts.

When talks began, Cincinnati State focused on the Manchester Inn as the center for its Middletown culinary and hospitality programing. Cayse said a partnership with Butler Tech would allow classes to start before the “bricks and mortar” of the branch campus are completed.

“What we need is lab space,” he said. “It’s not realistic at this point that we would have the Manchester remodeled by this fall.”

Meanwhile, the college’s faculty remain interested in experiencing the “Middletown campus” for themselves. Eight members of Cincinnati State’s faculty senate will be touring downtown at 3 p.m. today.

Faculty Senate President Carla Gesell-Streeter said most of them have never been to Middletown and only caught glimpses of it from the highway.

“We just want to see the real thing,” she said. “To visualize it and go back to our faculty and tell (them).”

Several faculty members and administrators toured the city last week and reported the school would be “foolish to pass up” Middletown’s offer for a branch campus here.

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jheffner

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