By: JACOB BROWN
Salina Post
The Salina Area Technical College (SATC) celebrated the grand opening of their new building with donors and supporters on Thursday.
The new Industrial Maintenance Automation (IMA) building is the finished product of a years long project. Starting in 2023, the Kansas Department of Commerce (KDOC) provided a grant of $1.8 million for the 15,000 square foot building. Local businesses and community members helped to raise funds to support the new project.
Some donors include the Robert and Aileen Button Fund which provided $400,000 to the building, alongside Nex-tech's donation of $10,000. SATC broke ground on the IMA building on March 28, 2024.
The IMA building will provide students with access to meeting rooms, a large shop, an auditorium and classrooms. The building, designed by architect Mike McCall, is made with the need to meet the demand for skilled professionals in the industrial maintenance and automation industry.
"This is a multipurpose space...we wanted to make sure we had space for our students to come to, our faculty and staff could work with, and our community could use," commented President Greg Nichols of Salina Area Technical College.
The building opened to the students on August 12th, with the remaining IMA labs to open inside on January 2026.
For more information about the IMA program, click here.
Click here to learn more about the IMA building.