OSU, Northwest State officials tour Starr

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

After more than 50 years of serving troubled girls and boys, Starr Commonwealth’s now-closed Van Wert campus’ next iteration could be as a community college campus.

Officials from two colleges were in Van Wert Tuesday to tour the 40-acre facility east of Van Wert. Dr. Bruce McPheron, vice president for agricultural administration and dean of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Services, was accompanied by OSU Extension Director Keith Smith and Extension representatives Cindy Torppa and Andy Londo, while Northwest State Community College President Dr. Thomas Stuckey also toured the facility.

Van Wert County Commissioners Thad Lichtensteiger and Todd Wolfrum, who had talked previously to McPheron about the Starr facility, were also on hand for the tour, which was conducted by Mike Kitson, former assistant director at the Van Wert campus and now director of admissions and customer service for Albion, Michigan-based Starr Commonwealth. Gary Clay, a trustee of The Marsh Foundation, which owns farmland adjacent to the Starr campus, also participated.

The tour included Starr’s former educational facility, which includes classrooms, a gymnasium and swimming pool, two of the five residential cottages and the former Beckmann residence, built in 1936 at a cost of $1.6 million.

McPheron was very impressed with the campus, noting that he was “intrigued” by the educational possibilities presented by the facility. In addition to housing classes for Northwest State and OSU, the Starr facility could also be used by OSU Extension for agricultural seminars and crop research on the Marsh farmland, but could also see use as a community resource through a local public/private partnership.

In fact, “partnership” was the word most used Tuesday by McPheron, who added that OSU is not likely in the market to purchase another educational facility, at this point. However, McPheron said he was interested in a partnership that could include Northwest State, which already provides classes in Van Wert, as well as local companies and/or government agencies, noting that OSU already partners with Northwest State at its Archbold campus.

The next step in the process, though, is for the commissioners to come up with a business plan from their perspective that would include whether a long-term lease could be worked out and other financial arrangements for the Starr campus. OSU and Northwest State would also come up with their own components of the plan, including possible uses for the facility.