ARC Grant Moves Forward Higher Education Center Expansion

By: Mac McLean/Bristol Herald Courier | TriCities.com
Published: April 18, 2008

The Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center is ready to move forward with construction of a 6,200-square-foot addition thanks to a $450,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Education Center Executive Director Rachel Fowlkes said the project will add two classrooms, a bathroom and a long breakout space to the center’s grand hall.

"We need the space desperately," she said, adding Education Center staff have spent the past two years raising money for the project. "The Higher Education Center right now is busting at the seams."

Fowlkes said the project has a total cost of $3.2 million, and money for construction has already come from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission and state government.

With the addition of the ARC grant money, the plan is to put the expansion project out for bid next month.

The Appalachian Regional Commission – a joint partnership between federal and state governments designed to help communities in the Appalachian region – on Thursday doled out more than $3.5 million in grants to 12 Southwest Virginia programs, including the Education Center located on the Virginia Highlands Community College campus in Abingdon, Va.

Another Abingdon project in the works, the Southwest Virginia Artisan Center, received a $1 million grant from ARC, which its director, Rob Jones, said would help toward the overall fundraising goal of $16 million.

Here is a list of the other grant announcements and the projects they will benefit: