Malcolm X College’s satellite campus on the West Side is one of City Colleges of Chicago’s most outdated buildings.
Despite undergoing a $5 million renovation half a decade ago, the exterior of the West Side Learning Center at 4624 W. Madison St. still looks like it’s from the 1980s.
That’s why school officials on Tuesday announced the West Side Learning Center is getting a much-needed $9.5 million facelift and expansion.
“Of all the satellites, this is the one that needed the most investment,” City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado told the Sun-Times.
A 3,000-square-foot addition to the satellite campus will be called the Community Center for Teaching and Learning.
Besides boosting student capacity by 50% to 2,000, the community center will also serve as a rentable events space.
The West Side Learning Center serves mostly nursing students, said David Sanders, president of Malcolm X College, whose main campus is at 1900 W. Jackson Blvd.
Attendance at the learning center is growing, and it needed to be expanded and renovated, he told reporters.
“We wanted to ensure that the facility matched the quality of the education that we are providing,” Sanders said.
Sanders was joined by U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) and state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who muscled the state to fund $5 million of the renovation.
Ford said it took about two years to secure funding for the project. City Colleges is footing the rest of the bill, he said.
City Colleges is hiring an architect for the project, Sanders said. The construction will be overseen by the Public Building Commission of Chicago.
The project will be completed in early 2026, officials said.
This is Phase Two of a three-part project to overhaul the small campus on a lot that formerly housed a Jewel Osco.
The first phase, begun in 2018, added biology laboratories and updated furnishings. Phase Three is still being developed, but school officials have said it could include a 15,000 sq.-ft. nursing and health care program lab.
