CCC Begins Project to Relocate to Downtown Holdrege

Construction has started on a major renovation to transform a former bank building in downtown Holdrege into a new space for Central Community College.

CCC officials announced in March plans to relocate from the Phelps County Agricultural Society building, where it has been housed for 26 years, to downtown Holdrege. The college will now lease space from BoSox 7 LLC, which purchased the former Great Western Bank building at 424 West Ave.

The CCC Board of Governors approved spending $1.9 million to relocate the college. Once completed, the 11,300-square-foot space will feature classrooms, live video rooms, a nursing assistant lab, a computer lab, offices, and a testing room.

“We greatly appreciate the decades of partnership with the Phelps County Agricultural Society but look forward to this expanded space to offer even more CCC services and programming to attract and enhance the lives of area residents,” CCC President Dr. Matt Gotshall said.

Gotshall said CCC has worked with more than 540 students in the past year at the Holdrege center and is seeing growing enrollment and growth in the number of credit hours taken. 

“We anticipate those numbers to increase due to expanded offerings and the increased visibility of our center and interactions downtown,” Gotschall said. 

CCC is planning to expand offerings in allied health, computer programming, and mechatronics while also exploring additional English language learning, adult education, youth programming, and small-business development. 

Sampson Construction is serving as the general contractor for the project and will coordinate with local and state subcontractors. 

CCC hosted a construction kickoff event on May 20. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year with students attending classes in the new space in January. 

PCDC helped spur the college’s relocation by setting up meetings between CCC and the building’s new owners.

“We love the idea of having the facilities downtown and expanded programming available for students,” said PCDC Executive Director Ron Tillery. 

PCDC provides partial funding for CCC’s nursing assistant classes and for the Janssen Auto Tech class conducted at Janssen locations. 

The Phelps County Ag Society now has more than 4,000 square feet of space available to lease starting in January. Contact the Ag Center staff at (308) 999-1169 for details.