Kellogg Community College breaks ground on Eastern Academic Center

Kellogg Community College will begin construction in late August on a 4,608-square-foot addition to its Eastern Academic Center in Albion.

The $1 million project will create space for classrooms, a seminar room and office space.

Walbridge, general contractor for the construction project, says it will provide jobs for 75 trades workers as the addition goes up. The new space is expected to open in January.

Classes taught there include communication, social science, business and math.

The building is growing to accommodate a growing number of Kellogg Community College students taking classes in Albion. It also supports a partnership with Marshall Public Schools, which operates an alternative school there.

The space is being added to the 15,071-square-foot EAC, which opened in August 2001.

Funding for the construction project comes from local grants, including a substantial gift from the Marshall-based Cronin Foundation, and KCC’s a capital millage approved by voters.

The Eastern Academic Center, also known as the EAC, served 273 KCC students in the 2013 spring semester, plus another 100 high school students who attended the Marshall Alternative High School. Marshall also operates the Opportunity School, an early-college program for high schoolers, at the EAC on weekdays.

Work on the project and growth of the program at the EAC will be celebrated with a groundbreaking at 4 p.m. Aug. 23 at the EAC, 14055 26-Mile Road, Albion. Officials will make brief remarks and offer tours of the EAC immediately afterward.

“We would love to see folks from the Marshall and Albion areas come together to celebrate an expansion of KCC’s educational offerings in eastern Calhoun County,” says Dr. Colin McCaleb, director of the EAC.

Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave Media
Source: Eric Greene, Kellogg Community College