Ivy Tech Community College’s Kokomo region is moving quickly on a Kokomo man’s $900,000 offer to purchase the Kokomo Event & Conference Center.
The Kokomo region’s board of trustees voted unanimously Thursday to accept the offer from Kokomo-based real estate manager Vernon Graves. Graves made the offer Monday, and now Ivy Tech’s state-level board of trustees will consider the proposal at its Feb. 5 meeting.
“The event center, while it’s of crucial importance to the community, it is not a part of our overall plan,” said Chancellor David Bathe, who oversees Ivy Tech’s Kokomo and Lafayette regions.
Ivy Tech has owned the conference center – which also houses the Kokomo Automotive Museum – since 2011. In May 2015, administrators announced the college’s intention to sell the facility as the event center no longer fit into Ivy Tech’s long-range plans for the Kokomo campus. At that time, the Kokomo Automotive Museum was notified it would need to vacate the space by May 2018.
Graves has said he intends to continue operating the building as an event center. Ivy Tech already had entered into event contracts through 2017, and Graves will honor those agreements as well as pursue new events. Graves was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
He also will allow the museum to continue operating through 2018 and plans to work out an agreement with the museum for future occupancy. Graves is president of the board of directors of the Howard County Automotive Hall of Fame and a long-time collector of vintage cars. Kokomo Automotive Museum director of development Bill Shively was not available as of press deadline to comment on the pending building sale.
“We’re excited. We think this is a great thing for our community,” Kokomo campus president Michelle Simmons said at Thursday’s board meeting. “We feel the event center is important to the city, to the community. An individual has come forward who has that same enthusiasm about keeping that event center operating.
“We need to focus on our mission, and that’s allowing us to do that,” she added.
Pending approval from Ivy Tech’s state board of trustees, Graves will have 60 days to perform due diligence and conclude the sale.