Total cost of potential new Prescott/Prescott Valley/CTEC projects range from $55 to $65 million. Meanwhile most projects delayed or more likely abandoned on the Sedona/Verde Valley side of Mingus Mountain
Sedona, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Camp Verde ask:
As we approach 2024, the Community College has decided to invest potentially in total between $55 million and $65 million in capital projects at the Prescott Campus, CTEC and the Prescott Valley Center. The proposed expenditures include:
-
$15 million to renovate the Prescott Campus library. (Approved.)
-
$10 million to expand CTEC at the Prescott airport. (Approved.)
-
$3 million for workforce housing, with some portion of the funds allegedly going to the Verde Valley Campus. (Approved.)
-
$30 million to $40 million to construct the Health Science building, which may also include a conference center as a part of it, at the Prescott Valley Center. (Pending final approval; concept approved.)
Meanwhile, projects at the Sedona Center and Verde Valley Campus on the east side of Mingus Mountain have been delayed and in some cases possibly abandoned. The only major approved development project is $3 million to renovate Building “M” on the Verde Valley Campus.
How did the enormous disparity occur?
The story begins in May 2022 when the Yavapai Community College District Governing Board approved two significant projects for Sedona and the Verde Valley. The first project involves the renovation of building “M” at a cost of $3 million. The second project is the development of a Fermentation Expansion project, which has been approved for $8 million.
The story now moves to November 2022 when the Yavapai Community College District Governing Board approved a conceptual framework for two new Community College development projects in Sedona and the Verde Valley. The first project involves a $9.25 million investment in student housing on the Verde Valley Campus, while the second project is a $608,000 initiative to develop a Commercial Driver Training facility in the Verde Valley, most likely on the vacant 80 acres or so on the Verde Valley Campus.
These projects are critical to the future of east County development, student welfare, and enhancement of the new but fledgling Career and Technical Education program. The Board also approved spending $14.52 million on the Prescott Campus library, $784,000 on renovating Learning Space on the Prescott Campus, and $14.52 million on expansion of Health Services at the Prescott Valley Center.
So, what has happened to the projects approved and the projects outlined as concepts?
As of now, there is no indication that the College intends to develop a Commercial Driving Center in the Sedona/Verde Valley area. It is possible that the funds allocated for this project, which amount to more than half a million dollars, are now available for Prescott/Prescott Valley projects
The story then moves to winter and spring 2023. Following the November 2022 Community College District Governing Board meeting, it is now clear that the Community College executives were balking at seriously following through on the student housing priority project for the Verde Valley Campus, with its estimated construction cost of $9.25 million . They began searching for alternatives and fairly quickly arrived at a housing scheme to replace the Verde Valley on-campus residence that would save them almost all of the $9.25 million.
In late February-early March 2023, the first part of the Sedona/Verde Valley Campus alternative housing scheme was implemented stealthily. The executives commissioned a design for the cheapest 10-space travel trailer park possible, and the College began grading the desert land on a portion of the College’s vacant 80 acres for the park in March. Astonishingly, the College located the tiny park around 100 feet from Clarkdale residents’ backyards. The cost of the project was seen as so inconsequential that it never appeared as a specific budget item, was not discussed for approval by vote of the Governing Board, and had little, if any, serious public input. So far, the park has attracted four travel trailers.
In June 2023, the second part of the alternative housing scheme was initiated. The Community College partnered with a Prescott Valley developer to set aside 10 apartments in a new apartment complex being built in Cottonwood for faculty and students. The scheme provided that students could rent the apartments at market price and commute a mile or so back and forth to the Verde Valley Campus. Despite the College’s efforts in July and August 2023 to persuade students or faculty to rent the apartments, none responded for the fall semester. They appear far too pricey.
With the alternative housing scheme in place for the Verde Valley Campus, the College executives could apply the $9 million intended for the east side of the County to projects on the west side. Moreover, there remained other possibilities to capture some additional Sedona/Verde Valley development funding.
The Prescott-based executives began to eye the May 2022 approved Distillery project. In August 2022 the College had quietly announced that it was being delayed for an unknown period of time with no explanation given for the delay. Then in March 2023, the College told the District Governing Board that it was “reformulating plans” and any movement on the project would be delayed until at least 2025. Thus, it appears that the $8 million for the east county fermentation project was no longer immediately needed and the future of the project put in serious doubt.
The story continues: While attention was on Sedona and Verde Valley projects and how to save money or delay them, the College executives on the Prescott/Prescott Valley side of Mingus Mountain were working like busy beavers on development plans. They were successful!
They asked for Governing Board budget approval at the May 2023 meeting to expend an estimated $28 million on capital development. The request sailed through. The Board allocated $15 million to renovate the library on the Prescott Campus and agreed to spend over $3 million for workforce housing, with an unspecified amount going to the Verde Valley. Then came a big surprise.
Included in the budget was a whopping $10 million for expansion of the Community College’s Career and Technical Education Center, located at the Prescott airport. That project had been slipped into the budget at the last minute and came as a complete surprise to most residents. Bewilderingly, there had been no Governing Board debate or public input about the project prior to the May meeting. There had been no indication it was even a future consideration. The $10 million was approved without comment by the Board. However, an even bigger budget surprise was coming a few months later.
The foundation for the big budget surprise was being laid in the spring and early summer of 2023. It is now known that Community College executives held a series of advisory meetings regarding building the Prescott Valley Health and Science Center during this period. At the October 2023 Board meeting, the College executives announced their new plan for the Center, which incredibly put construction to start in the summer of 2024, three years earlier than originally planned. They also announced that six new health care programs would be added to the curriculum, and the costly nursing training facilities on the Prescott Campus would be abandoned and moved to brand new facilities at the Prescott Valley Center. The estimated construction cost associated with the facility now appears to range from $30 to $40 million.
The end result of this story is that the west side of Mingus Mountain is working on spending anywhere from $55 million to $65 million on new development projects. Recall a decade ago the Governing Board at College executives request allocated $103.5 million for renovation and construction of the College District with 95% or more going to Prescott/Prescott Valley. Meanwhile, this year the only serous development expenditure identified on the east side of Mingus is about $3 million for renovating building “M”.
Some ask, “What caused the startling sudden start date change for the Health Science project?” The following is the explanation given at the October 2023 Governing Board meeting by the College’s Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services. He said:
Yavapai “County has been identified as what’s called a Silver City community, and we have twice the national average of folks who have retirement age, and that’s not a label we gave ourselves, that comes out of a Mackenzie and Company study where they analyzed every county across the country and put them into different kinds of economic buckets. And so what they’re saying is for a Silver City kind of community, you really need to make sure you have the right kinds of healthcare services to support that community and allow it to grow.
So coming out of that, we’ve hosted a number of Advisory Board meetings. We’ve called them a health Summit led by Dr. Mercado and by our Provost and our president and Mr. Jenkins, and we’ve gotten out there. And we’ve really tried to talk to our constituents to understand the kinds of academic programs that are needed, and we have some really exciting plans of about a half a dozen new programs that we’re going to add and since then, I guess, beginning in June. We’ve been working with SPS Plus to share with you what we’re gonna show you today.
If you “are paying special attention to the budget, you’ll know that this project is technically scheduled for fiscal year 27. We are currently in fiscal year 24. But through the good work of Richard Andis and Rodney Jenkins, we think we have some connections at the State and Federal level that would allow us to complete this project sooner, maybe as soon as starting next summer. So, we decided to move forward with the planning of this project, and that way we will be shovel ready if and when we get those funds later this year.”