Jefferson College officials recently held an open house to show off the school’s new $4.52 million dormitory added to the Jefferson College Viking Woods Student Housing complex on the Hillsboro campus. The building also houses the Jefferson College Police Department.
The new building is the fourth one in the Viking Woods complex, which opened in 2001.
“I think this is a great addition,” President Dena McCaffrey said.
Students moved into the apartments in August, while the police relocated from another building in the complex in October.
The new 14,470-square-foot building includes six single-occupant studio apartments and four two-occupant apartments, as well as the space for the police department. The department used to be housed in one of the older dorms, and that space will be converted into more apartment space.
The brand new dorm has three apartments on the second floor and three on the ground floor, with the ground-floor apartments specifically designed for resident accessibility.
Once that space is converted, Viking Woods can accommodate 220 student residents, up from 200 occupants, McCaffrey said.
She said the college has had no problem finding students who want to live in the apartments.
“We have a waiting list of 20 to 40 students every year,” she told open house attendees.
The project contractor, Aspire Construction Services of St. Charles, still needs to complete “a nominal set of outstanding items, such as landscaping and fencing on the building exterior,” said John Linhorst, vice president of finance and administration.
Linhorst said the overall cost for the new building project came to $4.9 million, including fees for architecture and design services and furnishings, fixtures and equipment.
The new 2,000-square-foot space for the police department is spread out on the ground floor and in the basement.
Jefferson College Police Chief David Parchim said he is happy with the department’s new home.
“We’ve been progressively moving over here the last few weeks,” Parchim said during the open house. “Our actual move-in day was Oct. 18.”
He said the department now has much more office space in which to work.
“We have about double the space,” Parchim said. “This is a more open floor plan, for sure. It’s not in a four-bedroom apartment, like in the other building.”
He said that including himself, the department has a total of nine police officers.
“The officers are happy to be here,” Parchim said.