Expansion Planned for Iowa College Sport Center

By Lisa Kopochinski

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – Cornell College in Mount Vernon has selected Kahler Slater of Milwaukee as the design architect for a major expansion and renovation of its Small Sport Center—the competition venue for its basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams.

Kahler Slater joins Mortenson Construction of Minneapolis, Minn. on the design-build team. A dollar figure and completion date for the project have not yet been released.

The team has been tasked with master planning for multi-phase improvements to the existing 105,000 gross square-foot facility, which opened in 1953 and was significantly expanded in 1986.

The project’s first phase will likely include the renovation and expansion of team locker rooms, the strength and conditioning center, athletic training areas, exercise studios, classrooms/meeting rooms, athletic department offices and competition venues.

A private liberal arts college, Cornell College was originally the Iowa Conference Seminary. The school was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman. Four years later, in 1857, the name was changed to Cornell College, in honor of iron tycoon William Wesley Cornell, who was a distant relative of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.