Individual students are showing up for class in droves — but the business community has been marked absent. Although The John and Mary Pappajohn Education Center is alive with people taking a variety of college-level courses, it’s still struggling to engage downtown companies as its leaders had hoped.

“We continue to search for a match between what (companies) say they want and what they’ll actually pay for,” said Kent Sovern, executive director of the center. “To date, the market hasn’t been responsive.”

Part of the center’s mission is to create training and educational programs that are tailored to corporate needs. Sovern and his colleagues said the slim results in the center’s first year could have several causes. They mentioned the newness of the facility, the continuing construction in its Gateway West neighborhood, the need for more marketing to create awareness and large-scale business trends. Even the downtown location, typically touted as a major strength, is acknowledged to have some disadvantages.

“Like every new business start-up, you struggle,” said Sovern, who left the Greater Des Moines Partnership to take the Pappajohn post. “You start with the idea you can fill a market niche. A year doesn’t give us any kind of track record to know whether we’re going to meet that niche. It’s way too early in our life cycle even to take a guess.”

Still, he said, the early going has been frustrating. “We’ve gone to young professionals, folks in the training and development community, project management groups,” Sovern said. “We’ve tried to penetrate into the market and get real answers about what the needs are, and we’ve gotten a lot of good data.

“But when we organize (a program), promote it and market it, we don’t get a response. There’s a real disconnect between what folks say they want and what they have the time and resources to do.”

“We’re still trying to identify the best way to get information to (downtown businesses),” said Jane Herrmann, executive director of continuing education at Des Moines Area Community College. DMACC is one of seven higher education institutions that make up the Des Moines Higher Education Collaborative and function as partners and tenants in the Pappajohn Center.

Herrmann said many of the business contacts so far have stemmed from surveys done for the Partnership. “We tried to find out when and where (the companies) want training. A lot indicated that having a facility downtown would be a real benefit to their employees.”

However, she said, echoing Sovern, “We have tried to respond to what they say they want, but we have not seen the registration or participation that we had hoped for at that location.”

Karen Anderson, dean of the College for Professional and Adult Learning at Collaborative member Grand View College, said: “In the last two or three years, businesses have cut back on corporate training where they bring in instructors. When times are tough, businesses cut back, and outsourced training is one area they look at.”

Instead, they take care of their own training needs. For example, a number of Allied Insurance employees at 1100 Locust St. walk to the nearby Pappajohn Center to take classes after work. However, when they need specialized insurance training, they receive it in Allied’s spacious in-house training area.

“More companies have invested in in-house trainers,” Anderson said. “That way, you get your corporate spin on it. Outside trainers can customize their classes, but they won’t have the company’s culture attached.”

She noted that the habits of downtown workers will have to change before the Pappajohn Center can reach its goals for business-specific training.

“People want to go home after work,” she said. Plus, “parking is always an issue downtown. Even on a college campus, they want to park near the front door.”

However, she’s optimistic that more business connections will be made in the next year.

“Downtown businesses came up with the idea of having a facility downtown, and part of the idea was to keep their employees downtown,” she said. “The Pappajohn Center was designed make downtown a true city with a variety of opportunities.”

DMACC President Rob Denson said the presidents of the seven Collaborative institutions meet at least once every quarter to discuss topics including the Pappajohn Center. “We’re still figuring out our niche,” he said, “but I think Kent has done a phenomenal job. We’re all committed to seeing it work.”

“It’s a wonderful facility and a great location,” DMACC’s Herrmann said. “We can only hope the business community will take advantage of the opportunity. I see downtown as being a great area for growth, and of course wherever there’s growth, there’s a need for educational opportunities. Lifelong learning is what the Pappajohn Center is all about.”