New building for Cape College Center, Career and Technology Center is on schedule

During an unseasonably warm Monday afternoon, workers laid brick on the exterior of the Cape Girardeau school district's forthcoming facility, a task they will continue throughout the week.

The building that will house Cape College Center and serve the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center is under-roof and on schedule.

"There's a lot of activity going on inside and outside of the building," Rich Payne, director of the career and technology center, said.

The exterior is wrapped in sheathing and partly covered in brick.

Inside, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and drywall are being installed.

Construction workers work on the Career Technology Center extension building Monday in Cape Girardeau.ANDREW J. WHITAKER

Payne said he hopes to have the temperature controls in place and activated before weather turns cold or damp so work can continue without interruption.

Projects such as tiling, Payne said, are sensitive to humidity, so having the temperature and ventilation controlled should make the job go more smoothly.

Weather-related road bumps occurred earlier in the year when the region was hit with considerable rainfall.

"We worked through that," Payne said, and the project remained on schedule.

Payne said he is pleased with the work Brockmiller Construction has done.

Work on the building is expected to be finished in March, at which point Cape Girardeau Public Schools and the CTC will work to prepare the facilities before classes begin in the fall of 2017.

The building will have eight classrooms, three computer labs, one health-care lab and one science lab. The Cape College Center will lease space there and hold all its classes there.

The CTC also will use the space, moving its physical-therapy assistant program out of its facility in Doctor's Park to the new building.

The $3.8 million project is part of a package of school-district improvements in a $20 million bond issue approved by voters last spring.

Payne said part of the plan in creating the new facility was to move all CTC programs on-campus and eliminate having to lease space.

Officials from CTC and Cape College Center are enthusiastic about the new building.

"The space is going to really allow us to be more effective in our instruction and most likely broaden the instruction we are able to do there," Gerald McDougall, associate provost for extended learning at Southeast Missouri State University, said.

New science laboratories will increase the number of classes Cape College Center can offer. It currently uses science labs in Cape Girardeau Central High School and is limited only to evening classes. Without such restrictions, Payne expects Cape College Center enrollment to increase when daytime science-lab courses are offered.

Expanded computer labs also will increase the amount of instruction the Cape College Center can offer.

The exact ways in which Cape College Center programs will be expanded will be determined and announced when the facility is finished, McDougall said.

The CTC also hopes the new building will be a home for new or expanded programs in development.

bbrown@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address:

1080 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.