DELAWARE — The Delaware Area Career Center broke ground Thursday on a 100,000-square-foot expansion aimed at meeting growing student demand.
The project comes as enrollment at the career center has nearly doubled since fiscal year 2016.
“The real breaking of ground did not happen today. It happened a year ago in our board room, when five of our community members voted yes, they saw the need to support our community and they voted yes to do this initiative,” DACC Superintendent Jay Poroda told the crowd.
Enrollment of on-campus students now stands at 1,408, and the building is running out of space to accommodate those students.
An additional 1,034 students attend associate schools, which include the Columbus Zoo, Camp Lazarus and the Delaware County Fairgrounds.
Despite that growth, more than 300 students are turned away each year from the 32 programs offered on the main campus due to limited space.
Project plans
The project, which is estimated to cost $35 million in construction costs, is being entirely funded by existing school dollars, meaning DACC did not seek to pass a levy to fund the expansion.
Expansion plans include:
- Constructing a new 50,000 square foot building that will house adult education programs
- Renovating 50,000 square foot in the existing building to expand high-demand programs and make space for new ones later
- Creating new collaborative academic learning spaces
“This will allow us to expand programming in our cosmetology and our health sciences programs because those are what is in high demand within our community,” Poroda said. “It’s going to allow us to launch an electrical trades program at an LPN program.
“These are fills that our region desperately needs, and that people have been telling us that we need to offer to our communities.”
By 2027, the cosmetology program will double in capacity. By 2028, DACC will add a new medical assisting and health technology program and explore adding a secondary licensed practical nurse program in the future, along with others.
The overall goal of the project is to maximize DACC’s existing footprint to keep growth a priority. The high school student space will allow 200-250 more students to attend DACC within two years, but the expansion allows capacity for 400 new students.
“The students who walk out these doors that walk into our hospitals are businesses and our fire stations, they walk into our salons and our restaurants, they are our workforce, and they make this region function. When we invest in the DACC, we invest in Delaware County’s future,” Poroda said.
Students will attend classes as usual during construction, although some classes may be shifted around until construction completes, which is set for August 2027.
