The leftover buildings from a 1950s Air Force radar base simply can’t meet the demands of providing a 21st century technical education, Ridgewater College officials said Thursday.

Members of the Minnesota Senate Capital Investment Committee toured some older parts of the college’s Willmar campus Thursday evening.
The college is asking legislators to include $3.5 million for Ridgewater’s Willmar campus in the bonding bill they will take up in the 2008 Legislative Session. The college would request an addition $14.5 million to finish the project in 2010.

In all, the college plans to tear down about 33,500 square feet of buildings that date back to the 1950s, when the campus was an Air Force base. It became a college in the early 1960s. The project would include remodeling another 77,100 square feet and building 18,100 square feet of new space. It would benefit a dozen technical programs, including the agriculture, continuing education, carpentry, electronics and electrician