New Campus for IMI

The $30 million facility includes: a 60,500 ft(2) training center, with offices, classrooms and design studios, as well as a 45,500 ft(2) conference center with offices, recreation facilities and rooms for 108 students. It can accommodate 2,000 students annually, and has approval for an additional 3,000 ft(2) dormitory.
Training is offered for all levels of craftworkers, from pre-job apprentices to journeymen and instructors. It’s also free to BAC members.
“Training apprentices before they start working, instead of ‘learn as you go,’ gives their careers a professional boost, and give contractors a more productive worker,” says IMI Co-Chair Fred Kinateder, president of Kinateder Masonry Inc. in.Waukesha, Wis.
With the new campus, IMI will expand its educational offerings for the design and building professions, such as technical design seminars, hands-on programs and its Contractor College. The center will also serve as a living classroom for field testing new products and applications, and assessing the life cycle costs of materials.
“This will let owners and developers get a clearer sense of their buildings’ true cost,” says IMI President Joan Calambokidis.
It’s also the new home of IMI's Masonry Camp summer program, where young architects and apprentice craftworkers experience masonry crafts and collaboration. 
The campus is in the process of obtaining certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, which oversees the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System™.
The IMI is funded by BAC and the signatory contractors who employ them. BAC is the oldest continuous union in North America, with more than 100,000 members, representing all trowel trades craftworkers: brick, block, stone, marble, tile, terrazzo, plaster, concrete, and restoration.