Studebaker building to house St. Joseph County Career Hub, South Bend school board votes

SOUTH BEND — While the South Bend school board voted Monday to make a former Studebaker building the future home of a St. Joseph County Career Hub, multiple dissenting board members and attendees questioned the logic since the school district also plans to retain two buildings that will close after this academic year.

At Studebaker Building 84, a six-story facility at 635 Lafayette Blvd. in downtown South Bend, the district plans to lease about 40,000 square feet across two floors and offer 19 educational programs in career and technical education. Such courses hold increasing importance in Indiana's graduation requirements and aim to give students work-based learning opportunities in fields ranging from welding to culinary arts.

But Jeannette McCullough, a South Bend Community School Corp. board member who voted no to the proposal alongside Mark Costello, said it worried her to consider a 20-year lease when Clay High School and Warren Elementary School are set to close this year. The board also voted Monday to continue using both buildings for a variety of reasons like alternative education programs, storage and administrative office space.

Monday vote: South Bend's Clay High School, set to close this summer, will maintain limited uses

McCullough and Costello said they supported the idea of a career center. But both referenced low utilization rates across the district's nearly 30 buildings. In the 2022-23 academic year, three schools were less than half full while 12 were enrolled below 75% capacity.

"Why are we not using our own buildings?" McCullough asked, echoing multiple people who spoke against the proposal during public comment. "If we're going to invest the money in this location to remodel it or whatever you're going to do with it, in my mind, we can do the same things with some of our schools.”

Andrew Wiand, the director of consulting organization enFocus, which led the search for a site, said choosing to lease space rather than to own a building is less costly over a 20-year period.

The estimated cost of the Studebaker property over two decades is about $32 million, or $1.6 million a year, where renovating a school building would have been twice as expensive in that same period. The 20-year cost of building a new facility, according to Wiand, would be $47 million.

The school district plans to spend $13.5 million to build out the space for the career center and is counting on a $5 million investment from the city of South Bend. Caleb Bauer, executive director of South Bend's Department of Community Investment, told The Tribune that although the career center is a "critical need" and the city is planning "significant financial support," no set amount has been determined.

Wiand said leasing the Studebaker property also allows the district to expand into 15,000 additional square feet of space. The center plans to host an estimated 500 students but could grow. To start, Wiand said, about four of five students will be from within the South Bend district, but he expects its central location in St. Joseph County to attract students from around the area.

Explaining his reservations, Costello said: "I wish that we could turn that into 1,000 students instead of just 500."

What St. Joseph County Career Hub will offer students

Costello said the career hub seemed great on paper, but years of declining enrollment districtwide lead him to doubt how it will attract more students. He wants the school district to share more about its partnerships with area businesses and sees an opportunity to involve GM/Samsung, the company building a $3.5 billion battery plant near New Carlisle.

While the school board on Monday approved the Studebaker building as the career hub's location, the official lease is likely to be considered at an April 15 meeting. Four school board members — Stuart Greene, Kate Lee, Stephanie Ball and Leslie Wesley — voted to pass the resolution on the career hub and the future uses of Clay and Warren.

At the career hub, a second-floor space will host "dirty tech" programs such as automotive services, precision machining, construction trades and welding. Rooms on the third floor will feature an array of career-oriented courses such as culinary arts, television and radio, criminal justice, cosmetology, and cybersecurity.

Indiana recently changed its graduation requirements to place more emphasis on career and technical education courses, causing school districts around the state to prioritize work-based learning.

But Drew Findlay, who oversees the district's career and technical education curriculum, says the classes also engage many students more than a day of traditional coursework would. He thinks student satisfaction will improve with the chance to spend a few hours each day on specialized classes at a top-notch career center.

"The more we can match student interests with the school system," Findlay said, "the more likely we are to retain students and/or attract students into the system."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Studebaker building will host St. Joseph County Career Hub