What to watch: Nearly a year after Midland voters overwhelmingly rejected a $450 million bond, Midland College’s administration is back with a $160 to $204 million list of proposed facility projects, plus several additional facility categories they have not yet priced. The college has not yet disclosed how it would fund any of the projects.

The big picture: The Midland College Board of Trustees met for an all-day retreat on Tuesday, April 21, and the agenda packet provided the administration’s first comprehensive facilities ask since voters rejected the college’s $450 million bond in May 2025, which failed by a 71.5 percent margin.

The rejected bond set aside about $277.5 million for new Applied Technology career and technical education (CTE) facilities, including roughly $132.9 million for more than 225,000 square feet of new construction, estimated at $590 per square foot. The remaining $144.6 million was for infrastructure, equipment, an operations center, and contingency costs.

In the college’s new proposal, phase I, estimated at $60 million to $83 million, would construct three new buildings totaling 124,800 square feet to house the welding, diesel, and petroleum energy programs. Phase II, estimated at $60 million to $80 million, would add two more buildings for automotive, construction trades, HVAC, and CADD, for another 87,700 square feet.

Combined, the $120 million to $163 million for 212,500 square feet, estimated at $565 to $767 per square foot, puts the proposal roughly on par with the previous failed proposal.

Go deeper: Additional Phase I renovations, totaling $4.5 million, would convert the existing diesel building at the Cogdell Learning Center into space for workforce continuing education and repurpose welding labs at the Advanced Technology Center for dual-credit health sciences and dual-credit construction trades. Additional Phase II renovations would add another $2.5 million for relocating the automotive lab.

Beyond the CTE proposals, the administration is asking for a $2.5 million Transportation Training facility for the college’s CDL program, $5.8 million for partial or full demolition and replacement of the original Cogdell Learning Center building, $15 million in modernization for the Daniel Hall and Craddick Hall residence halls, $7.5 million in upgrades to the Chap Center, and $3 million in expanded campus security cameras and lighting.

The packet also lists several additional facility categories, such as aging campus infrastructure broadly, the Central Utility Plant’s chillers and boilers, federal Office of Civil Rights accessibility compliance, elevator replacements, and signage and wayfinding, without dollar figures attached.

The other side: The college began publicly discussing scaled-back facilities options shortly after the bond’s defeat. At an October 14 board meeting, staff laid out a plan to address the growing demand for CTE without bond funding. That early plan identified the same three Applied Technology buildings, totaling 124,800 square feet, at $78.1 million in soft costs over two years.

Staff at that meeting also projected demand for 1,365 more high school students in dual-credit CTE courses by 2028 and roughly 1,200 additional adult CTE students if more space became available.

Reality check: The April 21 regular meeting agenda packet showed the college admitted 4,739 students for Fall 2025. Of those, 2,119 were dual-credit or early-admission high school students, students still enrolled in a high school taking college classes for credit. The April 21 special meeting agenda packet showed that the college enrolled 7,300 students for Fall 2025, of whom 3,228 were dual-credit students.

The college’s higher enrollment figure does not specify how many of those students attend classes in person versus online or how many credit hours the average student takes.

What’s next: The retreat carried no formal action items. We will wait to see if and when any or all of these projects return to the board or the community for a vote.