Still Expanding, North Campus Celebrates 10 Years

PEORIA — It has been ten years since Illinois Central College first held classes at North Campus, and on this special anniversary it looks like things are going nowhere but up for this growing component of ICC’s future.

As ICC President Dr. John Erwin explained, the North Campus was initially developed to solve a problem that ICC was facing.

“In 2001 and 2002 ICC experienced a burst of enrollments, and that enrollment pressure for this original East Peoria Campus was tremendous,” said Erwin. “I personally parked over by Quail Meadow’s driving range, that gives an example of how we were bursting at the seams. It was pretty evident to me I needed to look at a location that would complement the growth of Peoria and also obviously the growth that we were experiencing in enrollments.”

In 2002 when ICC first showed interest in North Campus, it was just an old medical facility. The last entity to operate from the property, the Zeller Mental Health Center, hadn’t maintained the property.

“Out of the eight buildings, seven of them had been just pretty much closed down,” remembered Erwin. “It was in a lot of disrepair.”

To ease the financial burden of moving into North Campus, Erwin said the state gave ICC a year lease at the cost of one dollar, and then the college was able to purchase the property outright for five million dollars the next year.

December of 2002 saw the first class offerings at North campus, but according to Erwin, these classes only consisted of two or three winter minimesters. As time went on, more and more classes were offered at North Campus, and while still in its early years, it even saw the formation of a complete new program, Massage Therapy. These additions continued through the years, and they were heightened in 2011 when ICC began phasing out the Downtown Campus by beginning to relocate its classes to North.

Now, according to ICC’s fall schedule, it is home to more than 250 classes. That’s 75 percent greater than the number held at the Downtown Campus, which has been operating for 40 years. And Erwin said that doesn’t even include the activities associated with North’s regional police training center, Professional Development Institute, or continuing education courses.

Lately, North campus has continued to improve in the form of building renovations and parking lot additions. Four of the seven buildings have been renovated, and every student parking lot on the property is completely new or newly resurfaced. The remodeling of Poplar Hall was completed just in time for it to house classes this semester, and more campus improvements will soon be underway. Most of Arbor Hall, the largest of North’s buildings, will be closed beginning October 1 so it can begin to undergo modernization.

To celebrate North’s ten years, ICC is hosting an “ICC North Update” on Sept 10 from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. at Poplar Hall, where the Peoria community can come learn about what ICC has been doing and will do at North Campus.

Seeing North develop has been a great pleasure for Dr. Erwin. “It’s a topic that’s close to my heart. It’s one of the real satisfactions I’ve had being president here is to watch that campus mature and evolve.”