Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett is retiring at the end of this year, but his name will live on—at the very least on a Montgomery College building.
The community college’s Board of Trustees voted Monday to name a math and science building to be built at the college’s Takoma Park/ Silver Spring campus after Isiah “Ike” Leggett and his wife, Catherine.
Board President Mike Knapp said Wednesday that Leggett and his wife have always been advocates for education and committed to the local community.
“Those two things have always been there,” Knapp said. “We thought this was an opportunity to cement his legacy.”
The county has budgeted about $88 million to design and construct the new 134,000-square-foot math and science building. Construction is scheduled to begin in December 2019 and be completed by the fall semester in 2022, according to the college.
The building will replace labs and classrooms that are more than 35 years old, according to the school.
Leggett will be retiring after three four-year terms as Montgomery County executive in December. Although term limits now prevent him from running for a fourth consecutive term, Leggett has also said he wasn’t interested in running for re-election.
The college noted in a press release Wednesday that Leggett has supported efforts to build new science facilities at the college’s Germantown and Rockville campuses, while Catherine Leggett has long been a local champion of the arts as the first chair of the Maryland Commission on Public Art.
Once completed, the building will be known as the “Catherine and Isiah Leggett Math and Science Building.”
