DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290652

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   60 lines

BEACH COMMITS TO TCC VENTURE COUNCIL PLEDGES TO FIND MONEY FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTER

The City Council agreed Tuesday to ante up the city's share of a $23 million joint vocational training center for public school and Tidewater Community College students, but didn't specify where the money would come from.

That decision must be made later, and will probably derive from several options offered by E. Dean Block, director of management services.

The council's commitment at this point to provide $13 million toward the construction of a technical center at the Beach campus of Tidewater Community College is crucial, Block explained, because state budget deliberations begin in January.

A council-approved resolution to support the funding must be approved by the General Assembly because it is a city-state venture involving higher education.

TCC sought to accelerate the process to gain time to revamp a proposal for the Virginia Community College System board. A request for $8 million for a 51,000-square-foot class and laboratory building took 10 years to make the board's needs list, Timothy Kerr, interim president of TCC, told council members at an earlier meeting.

The governor must review that list and select projects to include in his biennial budget, which is then scrutinized by the legislature.

The state said it would support funding the remaining $10 million for the center, Kerr said.

How the city will raise its share is another question.

Raiding either the municipal or school capital improvement budgets is out of the question because neither contains any ``wiggle room,'' City Manager James K. Spore advised council members.

The city's portion could be raised in several ways, Block said.

One involves using the city's charter bonds to raise the cash, paying off the loan over time.

Or the city might be able to lease the technical center from the state until the construction debt is paid off. This option would avoid a major up-front payment by the city.

A third option calls for an aggressive campaign by city officials to seek state and foundation grants and private-sector donations.

``We think the final plan will be a mix of sources,'' Block told council members. ``The majority will be city sources.''

The $23 million would pay for construction of a 137,193-square-foot complex on the Beach campus on Princess Anne Road. About a third of that space would be dedicated to TCC. The rest would house a variety of technical education programs.

The price covers design work, construction, equipment, inspection fees and incidental costs. The city would have to pay $600,000 to $650,000 a year to operate the center.

Design work on the project is tentatively scheduled to begin next year.

A partnership between a school district and a community college offers a considerable savings to Virginia Beach, School Superintendent Timothy R. Jenney said Tuesday.

Original plans to build a vocational-technical center on the campus of a new Lake Ridge High School would cost the city $30 million, he said. It would have served only public school students.

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