(Radio Iowa) – Renovations are complete on a four-story building that sits on the former campus for a state-run facility for adults with severe disabilities. The Glenwood Resource Center was closed in July of last year and a non-profit was formed to redevelop about 200 acres of the campus. Glenwood School Superintendent Nicole Kooiker says she hopes the re-development of a central building on the campus spurs other projects.

“I believe that having our presence up on the hill will help them actually to get it renovated, get housing, pull in some other families, develop Glenwood further,” Kooiker says. “…It’s gorgeous space, a large space up here, so we’re excited and thankful we can be up here and hoping that it also helps them also get other families to come into Glenwood.” The district’s administrative offices and some programs were already located in the building when the state closed the entire campus.

Kooiker says the district spent three-and-a-half million and some of that went to reestablishing utility connections that were shut off when the state closed the campus. “Nothing would be working up at this building without having to run up all of our own because the power plant ran it just kind of like a military base,” Kooiker said, “so when that shut down we had to be ready to continue to heating and cooling and water and plumbing, like all the things.” The first two floors of the building house a child care center.

“Capacity’s at 200,” she said. “We’ve grown quite a bit in the past couple of months. We had to get some staff before we can get more children and now we’re hiring more staff on excited to bring in more students and families.” There were minor updates on the building’s third floor. That’s where the school district’s central office is located, along with the district’s online and alternative programs for high schoolers. The fourth floor of the building is rented out to Apex, a program that serves students with special needs in about a dozen western Iowa school districts.

Glenwood school officials held an open house at the building this past weekend.