If you've been to downtown Davenport recently, you've probably noticed a big transformation taking place on 3rd Street between Brady Street and Main Street.
It's the future site of Scott Community College's Urban Campus and we learned that it's on schedule and under budget when WQAD News 8 had Breakfast With..." Eastern Iowa Community Colleges Chancellor Don Doucette on Thursday, September 14th live on Good Morning Quad Cities.
"We have served in the Kahl Building and above the bus station in the Urban Center and all, but we have never really had the facilities we needed to do as good a job as we needed to do for our urban constituencies," explained Mr. Douette.
The project includes connecting two empty bank buildings and turning them into a 92,000 square foot "gleaming modern campus," according to Doucette. He says it will have all the facilities Scott Community College needs to offer complete Associate’s Degrees and some signature programming, such as SCC's Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Program. For more information on that, click here.
What's more, Doucette says the project is on schedule and under budget:
"We’ll have our first classes in there in January of the spring semester of 2018," he said. "The second building will come available in March or April."
The project is also a catalyst for even more development in downtown Davenport. He explains that in the clip above.
Chancellor Doucette also spoke to WQAD News 8 about the value of higher education, which is a theme we are talking about over the next four weeks as we have "Breakfast With..." Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, University of Iowa, Western Illinois University-Quad Cities, and Augustana College.
He says about 30% of all jobs require a Baccalaureate or higher and fewer than 10% of jobs you can get with just a high school education.
"To compete in this economy, education or training beyond high school is absolutely critical," said Doucette.
He adds that there's a counter-narrative out there that college isn't necessary or too expensive, but that's not true:
"For a community’s perspective, the percentage of adults with post-secondary education of some kind actually can predict the economic health of the community, health outcomes, all kinds of things like that are based on the educational level of the community," he explained.
He also explained the goal that EICC and the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce have as part of its Q2030 Regional Vision. To hear about there, click the video below:
Chancellor Doucette left our conversation with this:
"Our goal is to develop, attract, and retain talent. The future of our community depends on our ability to do that."
This week's "Breakfast With..." was hosted by Oh So Sweet by Tiphanie, a vintage bakery with a modern twist located on Main Street in downtown Davenport:
"We use a lot of high quality ingredients," says Owner, Tiphanie Cannon. "We make everything homemade, but we like to think that everything is very approachable. There’s no pretense – like we make ding dongs and ho hos some pop tarts - but yet, they’re really really delicious because the of the ingredients and because they’re homemade."
Oh So Sweet has been in downtown Davenport for more than three years now and new this month - craft coffee by 392Caffe in Clinton, Iowa:
"We’re all about experience at 392Caffe, so we took the coffee aspect and made it awesome, but we also wanted to encapsulate the experience, so every time you come in there’s always a warm greeting, there’s lots of things going on, loud music, good times and people just really come to convene there," said Managing Partner, Jay Sanders. "Coming to 'Oh So Sweet' was natural, because it’s so cool here and downtown Davenport is perfect. A lot of our customers already live here and we’re just having a great time."
NEXT WEEK, we are having "Breakfast With..." the University of Iowa's Vice President for Student Life, Dr. Melissa Shivers. We'll be live on campus in Iowa City on Thursday, September 21st starting at 5am. If you have a question or comment for Dr. Shivers, click here.
To see all our "Breakfast With..." discussions, click here.