Lindenwood University signs lease in Twin Oaks

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St. Charles-based Lindenwood University is moving a satellite office and classroms into a vacant Twin Oaks Office Park building at 909 E. Republic Road.

The school is vacating space in Rogersville it has leased for 17 years in the same building as Boehne Financial Group, at 4940 S. Farm Road 189. There, five Lindenwood administrators oversee about 60 adjunct instructors who teach graduate- and doctoral-level education classes throughout southwest Missouri, said Terry Reid, director of graduate education. The school is taking possession of the Twin Oaks space on Nov. 1.

Adjunct teachers in southwest Missouri, including Springfield Public Schools Superintendent John Jungmann and Republic School District Superintendent Chance Wistrom, teach about 500 graduate, specialist and doctoral students in education, school administration, school counseling and instructional leadership programs.

“There are 61 superintendent and central-office administrators in southwest Missouri who are Lindenwood graduates, and there are over 200 principals, assistant principals, athletic directors and other administrators in southwest Missouri who are Lindenwood graduates,” said Reid, who worked as superintendent of Nixa Public Schools prior to Stephen Kleinsmith.

The private school – originally found in 1827 as a Presbyterian girls school – has 17,000 co-ed students, he said. The school’s operations include several sites in the St. Louis area and satellite campuses in Missouri and Illinois.

Lindenwood has had a presence in southwest Missouri since 2001, Reid said, when it began offering evening classes in Blue Eye and Kirbyville. Today, it rents classrooms at Ozarks Technical Community College’s Springfield, Richwood Valley and Table Rock campuses, as well as public school classrooms in Aurora, Blue Eye, Cassville, Hollister, Mansfield, Neosho, Ozark, Poplar Bluff and Willard. It also has classrooms in Scott Technical Center in Monett and South Central Career Center in West Plains.

The new office will allow the school to consolidate some of its rented spaces, but Reid wasn’t sure which ones would be vacated first.

“We also plan to do something we’ve never been able to do before. Many of these classes are going to be offered on Saturday,” he said. “That’s something that some of our potential students have requested, because they have a busy schedule during the workweek and it’s difficult for them to make evening classes.”

The newly leased office on East Republic Road will take up the lower level, Reid said, facing James River Freeway. Connell Insurance Inc. occupies the second floor. Lindenwood’s 5,300-square-foot office will house up to four classrooms, a computer lab and a meeting room, plus administrative offices.

Anita Zimmerman of Wilhoit Properties Inc. served as real estate broker on the three-year lease. Reid declined to disclose lease terms.

Lindenwood plans to move furniture and set up technology needed for the classrooms in November. An open house is expected in December, Reid said, and classes will begin in the new space during the second week of January.

The space in Twin Oaks Office Park previously was occupied by Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Co.’s Springfield branch, which moved to 2883 E. Battlefield Road, Ste. A-110.