MOUNT VERNON — The City of Mount Vernon hopes to move into Central Ohio Technical College’s downtown building by mid-October to November.

At a Tuesday press conference, Mount Vernon Mayor Matt Starr and COTC President Dr. John Berry detailed the partnership between the technical college and the city, explaining why the agreement made sense.

“One of the issues that we broached over the last several years was the changing demographic and enrollment patterns of students related to all of our campus locations,” Berry said.

COTC has four in-person campuses: Mount Vernon, Newark, Coshocton, and Pataskala.

This leaves COTC with good and challenging news about its Mount Vernon campus, Berry said.

“The good news is we have a lot of students from Knox County attending COTC,” Berry said. “The more challenging news was they weren’t necessarily attending this facility.

“We were only serving roughly 130 students in this facility (35,000 square feet) during that time.”

The college serves roughly 500 students.

According to Berry, one reason students don’t utilize the Mount Vernon campus is that COTC offers them an alternative through its online campus. Another factor is that students drive to Newark to attend classes rather than staying in Mount Vernon.

The college also has many students enrolled in its College Credit Plus program, where they’re predominantly in high school classes.

“And we’re subsidizing a lot of square footage with not a lot of students bringing income into that process,” Berry said.

“The great process with this is unbeknownst to us, the city was doing similar types of work about looking in environments that were conducive to their needs, as things continued to move and evolve within the city.

“The great news is we were able to kind of conjoin these two issues together, and we think we have a very viable symbiotic solution to that strategy.”

Mount Vernon City Council approves purchasing COTC building

Mount Vernon City Council approved the purchase at Monday’s meeting. The COTC board had previously approved it.

Under the agreement, the city will make 12 annual payments of $323,331.50 to COTC, including 4% interest, for a total payment of just over $3.879 million.

According to a previous Knox Pages report, the city was looking to relocate City Hall to Heartland Commerce Park.

The city and COTC will negotiate a separate 99-year lease for the college to occupy the second floor of the building. COTC will not pay rent until year 13, after the city has purchased the building. COTC will pay $40,208 in the first year. Successive rents will increase by 10 percent every five years.

Also, the college has the right of first refusal if the city decides to sell the building. However, the city cannot sell during the 12-year, lease-purchase agreement.

The city held several “listening sessions” for community members to share their thoughts and ask questions about the city’s plan to relocate from 40 Public Square.

“While this was not an option that was discussed at the time, I think the taxpayers will be happy to know that we’re saving over $10 million of the money,” Starr said. “And it’s move-in ready, and it speeds up our opportunity to start moving on these other projects that are crucial to our community. “

City’s future building plans

The current City Hall will become part of an expanded Mount Vernon Justice Center campus. It includes a fully remodeled interior along with new construction north of City Hall.

Salyers said the city intends to divest from other downtown properties to pursue private development opportunities that support downtown revitalization and new residential housing.

The divestiture includes the Taugher Building, located on the northeast corner of Public Square. It also includes the utility billing and income tax office.

COTC will occupy the second floor of the South Main building.