Hinds Community College and its supporters in local government and the business community in Vicksburg will break ground Wednesday on a 40,000-square-foot Academic & Career-Technical Building at the Vicksburg-Warren Campus.

Officials will gather at the site in front of campus at 10 a.m. for the ceremony marking the start of construction. 

The two-story building will house 10 classrooms, eight training labs, administrative offices, meeting space and a multipurpose room. Two parking lots and a bus drop-off are also proposed as part of the project, plus an access road to connect parking spaces to the existing parking area.

Flexibility is the prime selling point, said Marvin Moak, vice president for the Vicksburg-Warren Campus.

“The main goal for the building is to give us the space to operate a 24-hour-a-day class schedule,” he said, adding that kind of borderless flexibility gives night shift workers at local industries who want to build their skills and bolster their resumes a chance to do so. “It’ll help people get from where they are to wherever they want to be.”

Funding the $13 million project is an additional 1.4 mill property tax in Warren County, approved in September as part of the county’s budget for fiscal year 2018 by the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

Offsetting the cost for the college will be the use of federal and state New Markets Tax Credits, which will generate a $4.5 million subsidy for the college to appropriately furnish the building with equipment and technology.

A new home for academic and career-tech students under one roof is but another reason to succeed for students in River City Early College, which exposes high school students to college-level coursework, including career-tech fields.

“It’s going to be an awesome opportunity for our community,” said Gwendolyn Appleby, faculty adviser for the campus SGA and sociology instructor in the program. “Our first priority is to accommodate our students whenever we can.”