By STEVE BINDER
Illinois Correspondent

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Despite a weakened state economy, the Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s (SIUC) College of Agriculture is undergoing a building boon, of which it hasn’t seen the likes for about five decades.

One of three projects begun late last fall has been completed, while the other two are about half-completed. Workers recently finished the reconstruction of the college’s feed mill at a cost of about $750,000.

Across the street from the mill on SIUC’s farm complex, workers are finishing the framing for a new Farm Service Center, a $600,000 project that will serve as the college’s main animal feed production facility. Framing on a smaller, third project, a new horse center, also is nearly complete.

All three buildings were damaged during a vicious storm in May 2009 that meteorologists identified as a derecho. Winds were clocked at more than 100 mph, and damage to SIUC facilities and city of Carbondale public property alone exceeded $6 million. The storm stretched over a 120-mile area from southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and Indiana and northwestern Kentucky.
Most of the funding for the three SIUC projects came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with about one-quarter coming from the university’s insurance coverage.

“(FEMA) finally approved the amounts sometime early in the summer,” said Todd Winters, the college’s interim dean. “It probably took a lot longer than everyone wanted, but we’re moving forward now.”

The three projects are but a small portion of additional construction that will approach $50 million soon, Winters said, with a $40 million upgrade planned for the college’s main building on campus.

It all ties in nicely with the upward movement of the agriculture industry in the Midwest, Winters said. He noted a recent USDA study that showed an additional need for 54,400 people to fill ag jobs during the next five years.
“Our enrollment continues to climb each year,” Winters said. SIUC’s fall 2010 enrollment for the college stood at 950 students, he added.

Unlike the old Farm Service Center, the new facility will include classroom space along with additional room for its role of servicing all of the farm’s vehicles and equipment.

Work on the center and horse building should be completed by May.

“We’ve needed to upgrade our facilities because most of what we have were constructed during the 1950s,” Winters added.