IBHE Grant

Overview

Columbia College Chicago received grant funds from the Independent Colleges Capital Investment program for 3 (three) distinct capital improvement projects on its campus in the South Loop neighborhood of Chicago. A summary of each project is provided here as well as a description of the grant program.

Independent Colleges Capital Investment Program

The Independent Colleges Capital Investment Grant Program is a grant program administered by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) in conjunction with the Illinois Capital Development Board to provide independent colleges with financial assistance for Capital Projects.

Capital Projects means the construction, repair, renovation, and miscellaneous capital improvements, including the planning, engineering, acquisition, reconstruction, remodeling, improvement, repair and installation of capital facilities and costs of planning, supplies, equipment, materials, services, and all other required expenses

Project #1 - Academic Services (Persistence, TRIO, and Tutoring) *Now accepting IFB submissions

Location: 33 E. Ida B. Wells Chicago, IL 60605; 1st floor

View IFB here. Submissions due by Friday, January 15, 2025, no later than 2 p.m. CDT. Please note a mandatory site visit is scheduled for Friday, January 3 at 9 a.m .

View additional project documents.

OVERVIEW

Columbia College Chicago is seeking a Design-Build Team to provide design and general contracting services, including architecture, interior design, engineering, project management, resource procurement, site construction supervision, and project administration for the turn-key development of the IBHE-funded Academic Services Project at 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive. This project is located on the building's first floor and will encompass approximately 13,500 square feet of space.

Location: 33 E. Ida B. Wells Chicago, IL 60605; 1st floor

View RFP here. Submissions due by Monday, December 2, 2024, no later than 3 p.m. CDT. Please note a walk-through is scheduled for Friday, November 22 at 9 a.m.

OVERVIEW

Columbia College Chicago is seeking Environmental Testing services to conduct comprehensive material inspection, assessments and reporting for the IBHE-funded Academic Services Project at 33 E. Ida B Wells Drive. This project is located on the first floor of the building and will consist of approximately 13,500 square feet of space. Scope of service includes environmental surveys, environmental design services (if required), and environmental oversight services (if required).

Columbia College Chicago seeks to create an integrated “one-stop shop” for tutoring and related support services that promote retention and completion. Currently, these services are located in multiple locations across campus. Co-locating the Tutoring Center, which provides students with support for their academic coursework, the Persistence team, which provides students with coaching and a broader range of support for life on campus, and the TRIO Office, which provides grant-funded and targeted support for underrepresented, under-resourced, and first-generation students will offer students more comprehensive access to the interrelated and mutually supporting services across these three closely related offices.

The integration of these vital student support systems would go well beyond proximity and convenience, it would enhance the awareness by students of other available services they may not currently be exposed to and will enhance the coordination among the offices and drive a more holistic approach and follow-through for students. The ultimate goal is to significantly increase the number of students served, up from the 3800 students served collectively by these offices now.

Our Student Persistence team engaged with nearly 3000 unique students in 2022, and 136 students have participated in the Scholars Project – a special program in this area serving BIPOC and first-generations students as part of the college’s broader Social Justice Initiative – since its founding in 2021. TRIO, a federally funded program serving first-generation students, income-eligible students, and/or students with disabilities, enrolled 153 students during the 2022-23 academic year. The Academic Center for Tutoring hosted nearly 3000 appointments in 2022, supporting 363 unique students in tutoring and another 172 students in academic coaching. In addition, our Academic Advising team hosted more than 12,000 appointments in 2022, meeting with 5268 unique students – approximately 65% of enrolled students. These four areas of student support in academic services are in five different locations on campus. With a redesign of the 1st floor of 33 E. Ida B. Wells, there is great potential to continue offering these services, but to also increase the number of appointments and unique students served in each area.

In an effort to improve the overall student experience and to increase the number of students who utilize these important services, the College is seeking to pull some of these resources into one shared space. With a capital investment, the first floor of the 33 E. Ida B. Wells Building can be completely re-imagined as a new Center for Academic Services. The Scholar’s Project in Student Persistence and our TRIO Program serve many BIPOC and First-Generation college students, with the ultimate goal of increasing student persistence and graduation rates of our frequently underserved populations. Although Academic Coaching and Tutoring are services for all students, it is important to ensure that many students are aware of these resources, and it is easy to locate and access this support. By re-organizing these four units so they are all in one physical space, it will enhance our services for all students, but especially for many underrepresented and underserved students. Tutoring, Persistence, and TRIO offices are currently allocated 12,000 square feet of space. The net assignable space available for renovation to co-locate these offices is 13,000 square feet of space that is designed with purpose and intent.
Project #2 – 623 Green Building Initiatives

Location: 623 S. Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60605

View IFB here. Submissions due by Tuesday, April 8, 2025, no later than 1 p.m. CDT. Please note a mandatory site visit is scheduled for Monday, March 31st at 11 a.m. CDT Please see IFB for details.

View additional project documents.

OVERVIEW

Columbia College Chicago is seeking a Design-Build Team to provide design and general contracting services, including architecture, interior design, engineering, project management, resource procurement, site construction supervision, and project administration for the turn-key development of the IBHE-funded Academic Services Project at 623 S. Wabash Avenue. The project includes upgrading passenger elevators, refreshing elevator lobbies, and implementing LED retrofit across all 10 floors of the building.

The 623 S. Wabash building is situated at the heart of Columbia College Chicago’s campus, spanning roughly 204,000 square feet across ten stories. The building houses some of the most utilized spaces on campus, with the highest daily student traffic among all buildings, averaging approximately 6000 entries (student ID swipes) per day.

The 623 building accommodates teaching and administrative spaces for various academic departments, including Art and Art History, Design, Fashion Studies, Science, and Mathematics. Other key spaces in the building include the 10th floor Makerspace, a student-centered arts, crafts, and fabrication studio that encourages and fosters creativity outside the classrooms; HAUS, a multi-purpose student space for daily activities, study sessions, meetings, and occasional student organization events; and the Hokin Gallery, an exhibition space that provides faculty and students with a platform to exhibit their creative work to the larger urban community.

In an effort to align with the College’s Green Buildings Program and its commitment towards sustainability and carbon neutrality, a LED lighting retrofit project is proposed for the 623 building. Approximately 10,000 non-LED bulbs across ten floors will be replaced by DLC-qualified LED lamps. This initiative aims to significantly reduce energy consumption, lower maintenance time and operating costs, and most importantly, create a more comfortable environment for students, faculty, and staff by improving the lighting quality in all the spaces.

To address the high-volume student traffic, the College also plans to remodel the four passenger elevators, which are nearing the end of their life cycle and require improved accessibility features. The objectives for the elevator remodeling include reducing student travel time between floors, enhancing accessibility features, upgrading safety measures, installing energy-efficient systems and components, and modernizing control panels and interior finishes to enhance user experiences.
Project #3 - American Sign Language Deaf Space Learning Environments
Location: 33 E. Ida B. Wells Chicago, IL 60605; 4th floor

Active Procurement: Not seeking bids at this time.

The American Sign Language (ASL) department at Columbia College Chicago is internationally renowned as a leader in ASL-English Interpretation and the study of Deaf culture, offering a curriculum that prepares students to earn national certification in interpreting. Currently, the fourth floor of 33 E Ida B Wells at 21,520 sq. ft. is home to ASL department offices, English and Creative Writing department offices, several small shared general-purpose classrooms, and an ASL class laboratory. The floor is very inefficiently laid out, and renovation will provide space for much needed larger more flexible classrooms, class laboratories, and other learning and gathering spaces supporting enhanced learning outside the classroom. Our goal is to have classrooms designed to be inclusive for all students, especially including those who are neurodiverse. The design needs to be done with purpose and intent and will provide a variety of options to enable students to find a space that fits their specific needs in all aspects of the space—color, lighting, materiality, elements in the field of view and sensory stimuli.

Our American Sign Language department is small, generating approximately 3,000 student credit hours per year between major, minor, and elective offerings. As a result, the fourth floor will also have capacity to support our English and Literature courses, which generate nearly 20,000 credit hours per year. All Columbia College Chicago students are required to complete general education coursework in Writing and Literature. Modern, flexible classroom spaces will allow us to improve student outcomes in those areas and deliver curriculum more efficiently. This efficiency contributes to our ability to keep the cost of attendance low and allows us to improve consistency in the delivery of our courses.

We propose converting the fourth floor into flexible, active classroom and co-curricular spaces foregrounding key principles of accessible design. The teaching spaces will incorporate modular classroom layouts, resonant flooring, specialized lighting, carefully chosen paint colors, and thoughtfully oriented room and hallways orientation to allow longer sightlines, better visibility, and carefully tuned vibration and reflection. These elements will improve communication, connection, and overall experience in the classrooms, as well as serving the needs of the Deaf, DeafBlind, and second-language students, staff, and faculty in our American Sign Language department. The larger, flexible classrooms will also allow us to deliver larger general education classes that incorporate active learning in the classroom, including adopting a comprehensive approach to designing for our neurodiverse students. According to a recent study by HOK, “Neurodiverse thinkers often can be over-or under-stimulated by factors in their environment such as lighting, sound, texture, smells, temperature, air quality or overall sense of security. The incorporation of DeafSpace design throughout the floors will improve accessibility for all of our students.