Owens leaves Maumee 6 years after expansion

Community college moves out Arrowhead Park site

Owens Community College has left Maumee six years after it expanded into western Lucas County riding a wave of record-high enrollment. The school moved out of a more than 25,000-square-foot Arrowhead Park site at 1724 Indian Wood Circle in Maumee last month.

Owens Community College has left Maumee six years after it expanded into western Lucas County riding a wave of record-high enrollment.

The school moved out of a more than 25,000-square-foot Arrowhead Park site at 1724 Indian Wood Circle in Maumee last month. Its $502,766 a year lease with owner Arrocorp III expires in July of 2019.

The school has sub-leased about 16,000 square feet in the building to ProMedica through Jan. 31, 2018, for $298,904 annually. Michael McDonald, Owens executive director for operations, said other parties, whom he declined to name, are interested in the remaining space.

The board of trustees today authorized the school’s president and treasurer to negotiate additional sublease agreement for the space.

Signing on another sub-leaser for the space is expected to roughly cover the school’s remaining lease payments.

“We didn’t see the demand for us to be in Maumee as we did when we first went into that location, so we began to look at an opportunity to move things back,” Mr. McDonald said.

State authorities placed Owens on fiscal watch last year as the school struggled financially amid dwindling enrollment.

The school opened the Maumee center in January of 2010, right before Owens enrollment would start to fall as students returned to the workplace amid an improving economy.

In 2009, Owens posted a record-high enrollment of 23,606 students. The school reported a headcount of 10,532 for this spring semester.

In addition to work-force training, the Maumee site hosted community courses, including non-credit art, gardening, photography, and computer-related classes. Prior to the center’s opening, officials expected it would support about 1,000 students. Enrollment of for-credit students never reached that mark, said spokesman Jared Meade, who addded that the number of students using the facility has continued to shrink.

In other business, trustees today unanimously voted to renew the term of President Mike Bower from July 1 through June 30, 2017. His salary will remain at $188,000 a year, Mr. Meade said. 

Contact Vanessa McCray at: vmccray@theblade.com or 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @vanmccray.