At Olive-Harvey College on the Far South Side sits the half-built husk of a building Mayor Rahm Emanuel planned to make a centerpiece of his efforts to reform the city's community colleges.
Originally scheduled to be completed in spring 2015, the Olive-Harvey Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Center was intended to prepare students for good-paying jobs as part of the city's College to Careers program, an Emanuel initiative to make the seven community colleges more jobs-focused.
But the project — a joint initiative between the state and City Colleges of Chicago — repeatedly has stalled amid the state's budget crisis and disputes between the city and Springfield. Instead of being filled with students taking classes, the facility sits idle and empty, its future uncertain after years of delays that could cost taxpayers millions beyond the initial $45 million price tag.
So far, the state has spent about $24 million on the center and City Colleges has spent about $2 million, officials said.
"The people of the South Side are the ones losing," said Joseph Craan, faculty council president at Olive-Harvey, which enrolls about 10,000 students a year, the majority of them African-American. He criticized city and state officials for failing to complete the project, calling the lack of development a "travesty."
The expansion of Olive-Harvey aimed to provide "the premier training ground for Chicagoans" pursuing careers in automotive technology, applied engineering, the repair and maintenance of heavy equipment and supply chain management. The groundbreaking, in 2013, was celebrated with golden shovels, and the project was supposed to be part of a $524 million, five-year capital investment across all seven City Colleges.
Plan to move some City Colleges courses to North Side prompts outcry Dawn RhodesUnion members, advocates and Chicago aldermen railed against a City Colleges of Chicago plan they say will eliminate educational degree programming for students in the South and West sides of the city.
The group, including representatives from the Cook County College Teachers Union and Chicago...
Union members, advocates and Chicago aldermen railed against a City Colleges of Chicago plan they say will eliminate educational degree programming for students in the South and West sides of the city.
The group, including representatives from the Cook County College Teachers Union and Chicago...
(Dawn Rhodes)Instead, city and state officials are pointing fingers about who is to blame for the delays, as the stalled project is largely a consequence of the state's failure to pass a budget for more than 18 months. Colleges and universities have been provided some funding through stopgap budgets, but the focus has been on keeping schools open day to day, not construction projects.
"We wouldn't even be having this conversation had the state managed to live up to the commitment they made, not once but twice, to finish the project that they negotiated in the first place," Emanuel spokeswoman Lauren Huffman said Monday in a statement. "This is how the state of Illinois treats higher education, and students around the state - at City Colleges, at Eastern, Western, Southern and throughout the University of Illinois system, and at Chicago State - are bearing the brunt as a result."
The state originally committed to picking up about 70 percent of the cost, but, citing the budget impasse, Illinois officials issued a stop order on construction in June 2015. Frustrated by the delay, Emanuel and City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Cheryl Hyman announced a takeover of the project in March 2016.
Months later, however, the state jumped back in, with officials telling contractors that state funding had been secured and they could restart the work, according to a letter sent by Jodi Golden, executive director of the state's Capital Development Board, which oversees the construction of college buildings.
That proved "premature," Golden recently told the Tribune, and the project was again shelved last month, frustrating students, city leaders, contractors and educators.
A tattered sign at the construction site's edge shows a modern structure with big glass walls and ivy lining the exterior. The current, incomplete building is flanked by cinder blocks and open to the elements, bearing little resemblance to the mockup.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration said in a statement Monday that the city has said it plans to work with City Colleges to allocate resources to help the Capital Development Board finish the project.
"We are hopeful that City Colleges will partner with the state and we can get this project moving again," his office said.
'First of its kind'
Emanuel and then-governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, announced the "first of its kind" transportation center in March 2012, nearly one year into Emanuel's first term.
The state initially pledged $31.6 million for the building in addition to $13.2 million from City Colleges.
The new facility was part of the College to Careers initiative that would help remake City Colleges, an effort that also included boosting healthcare education at Malcolm X College. A new $251 million Malcolm X campus was completed on time and on budget in January 2016, handled entirely by City Colleges, officials said.
The 103,000-squre-foot Olive-Harvey center, meanwhile, would prepare students for transportation-related jobs, with facilities that would include automotive and diesel engine laboratories, an engine dynamometer, classrooms, simulated driving facilities, a testing center and vehicle bays. It also would be a central location to provide office supplies to City Colleges' seven campuses and other buildings, officials said.
"This shared investment reflects our shared determination to strengthen our economy together," Emanuel said when announcing the venture with Quinn in 2012.
The state signed deals with at least 10 contractors, including an architect, and construction work began. But partway through the work, legislators failed to appropriate money for the fiscal year beginning July 2015, Golden said, so the state issued a stop order on the project, one of more than 200 projects affected.
When Hyman and Emanuel appeared at the construction site last March to announce the takeover, they pledged to finish it by fall 2017.
Officials at the time said the project was 60 percent complete and would need $23 million to finish, including an estimated $4 million in new costs resulting from damage to the facility from the then-eight month delay.
"We could have already had students learning in a state-of-the-art facility and working to gain skills they need to gain in-demand jobs if it weren't for the state's budget stalemate," Emanuel said in a statement at the time. "We as a city can no longer wait for the state to resolve its issues…"
On the same day Emanuel announced the restart, Golden sent the city a letter saying she was "pleased to learn through media reports" that City Colleges planned to resume construction.
But the letter also raised concerns about warranty and vendor liabilities, as well as logistical and legal problems that would need to be addressed before restarting. State law requires the Capital Development Board to supervise construction funded by the legislature.
"One possible solution is for you or the city to repay the state's taxpayers for any expenditures to date," Golden wrote. "We welcome additional solutions, but must insist on a formal resolution prior to the resumption of any construction in order to comply with state law."
Ultimately, City Colleges said the state's concerns made it impossible to move ahead with the project — and construction stalled once more.
False start
There was some hope in August when the Capital Development Board told City Colleges it had funding for the project. It also told contractors they should resume work, according to letters sent by the state to the vendors and obtained by the Tribune.
But no construction took place between August and January, City Colleges said. The General Assembly failed to appropriate the money needed to restart the project and costs submitted by contractors were exceeding initial estimates, the state said.
In mid-January, the state told City Colleges it would be putting the project back on hold, a City Colleges spokeswoman said.
"Rather than allowing the project to move forward just to shut it down again, we felt it prudent to first find additional resources," Golden said in a statement.
Jim Bruckner, whose firm holds the project's plumbing contract, blamed both city and state officials for the project's failure to materialize.
Bruckner also said his firm, Chas F. Bruckner and Son, has worked extensively with the state over the years and he's "never seen anything like this."
"They just shut the doors, locked the gate and said we'll let you know when you can (return)," Bruckner said.
City Colleges said the most recent delay has affected about 400 construction jobs and potential job opportunities for students who aren't getting the training. When the center was announced, it was predicted that the region would see more than 110,000 new jobs in the fields of transportation, distribution and logistics over the next decade.
"We are currently evaluating our options to resume the project—and restore the opportunities it promises our students—as quickly as possible," according to a statement from City Colleges. It said it's prepared to meet its original commitment if the state does the same and covers re-starting costs caused by its 2015 stop order.
The half-built building, meanwhile, has drawn attention from Olive-Harvey students who attend classes a short walk away. When the new center is complete, students will be able to take courses in both buildings.
Nala Cooper, a 20-year-old business student at Olive-Harvey, said it's "ridiculous" the unfinished building's been sitting there as long as it has been. She said someone needs to take ownership of the construction.
"The longer it sits there, the more money they'll be spending," Cooper said.
gpratt@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @royalpratt
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