NIC celebrates sciences building

The halls of the new health and sciences building at North Idaho College seemed spacious until they were crammed with hundreds of guests who attended the opening celebration Thursday.

The festivities were moved inside from the plaza because of rain, forcing Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and other dignitaries to speak from the middle of the hall, directing their comments first east and then west and back again.

“This is quite an interesting … ,” Kempthorne began with arms outstretched, and his amplified voice soaring up through the mezzanine to the skylights. “It’s great you’re all here.”

It’s been a year and a half since NIC and other college campuses across the state secured the money to build new facilities. They were funded by a statewide 20-year bonding program worth $68.5 million that the Legislature passed in the final hours of its 2003 session.

The money had been approved two years earlier, but then canceled in 2002 because of the nationwide recession. Legislators passed the bonding program in 2003 to take advantage of low interest rates and provide construction jobs.

“Every university and college campus has a building now that’s being built that’s much needed,” Kempthorne said.

He said the decision to build and aggressively recruit business helped Idaho become one of the first states to emerge from the recession.

“A lot of states would like to do this,” he said. “Not a lot of states followed our example by saying, ‘We will be the masters of our own destiny.’ ”

Kempthorne had just come from the University of Idaho, where he celebrated the $12.3 million renovation and transformation of the University Classroom Center, now called the Teaching and Learning Center.

The state bonding program paid for the $11.9 million NIC building, but it was a local fund-raising effort, led by the NIC Foundation, that paid to furnish the 57,000-square-foot building with the latest in hospital and scientific equipment and technology. The foundation raised more than $3 million from more than 360 donors, said its president, Dick Sams.

“Everybody could get behind the vision and the dream,” Sams said.

But no one got behind it more than Steve and Judy Meyer, who last week announced a $1 million donation for keeping NIC on the technological cutting edge. The college is so grateful that the NIC board decided to name the building the Meyer Health and Sciences Building.

The college doesn’t have any imminent plans for other new buildings. But Michael Burke, NIC president, said he has made a request to the state Permanent Building Fund advisory council for money to renovate Seiter Hall, which used to house many of the science laboratories that are now in the new building. Burke would like to turn those old laboratories into new classrooms.

Meanwhile, the college is starting to look at updating its long-range plan, among the priorities of which are to expand the facilities for professional-technical programs, such as mechanics and carpentry.

“That’s where our space crunch is now,” Burke said.

And then there are the wish lists of all the dreamers on campus. Students want a recreation center, for instance, and NIC board President Rolly Williams, who is the former college athletic director and basketball coach, would like to see a new gymnasium with 6,000 seats.

“I’ll tell you how old that gym is,” Williams said. “I played in that gym when we won the state basketball championships in 1955.”

The campus itself is limited by waterfront on its north and west sides, residences on its east flank and the DeArmond sawmill to the north. In a couple of years, the mill may be replaced with a new one in Hauser, Idaho. If that happens, the DeArmond mill and another mill owned by Stimson Lumber, could be moved off the waterfront.

That could open up more land for a much-anticipated education corridor that may benefit NIC, UI and Lewis-Clark State College.

But until more property becomes available and the money is raised, Burke and other college officials seem plenty satisfied with the new, comfortable space provided by the Meyer Health and Sciences Building – even if it was a tight squeeze to get to the punch bowls on Thursday.

“Despite the weather, I’m having a pretty darn good day,” Burke said.