Adam Taylor
Amidst a flurry of lumber litter and wet paint, the “Future Village” sits at the center of the largest-scale and most complex plan in recent Pierce College history.
Estimated to span the course of five years and cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Village project is at the very least an impressive undertaking.
VLGE 8100 and 8200, located behind the South Gym, are currently home to a number of speech, foreign language and media arts classes which formerly occupied the Mason Street bungalows.
The recent transition, however, was not a smooth one by all accounts.
Mona Altounji, senior office assistant for EOP&S, is among the frustrated faculty uprooted and relocated by the project.
“Our computers are still not working properly for the second week now, and that’s not acceptable,” she said, calling the move “a disaster” technologically.
When asked about setbacks in the plan, Pierce President Robert Garber replied, “It’s just been minor delay after minor delay.
“There’s a timeline that keeps getting shifted around, of when things start and stop.”
Through a puzzling series of rotations and consequent renovations, the Village is to act as “the critical linchpin in the project,” explained Garber.
During each phase of construction, it will host classes while their old rooms are fixed up.
“Over the break, 30 total rooms were renovated,” Garber added, pointing out his office window, “social science, behavioral science, English and math.”
According to Dennis Buckley, senior project manager, Propositions A and AA set aside considerable funding several years ago specifically for community college renovations.
Garber estimated that funding at “about $280 million, and now we’re asking for state money to build a new library.”
With efficiency in mind, the Academic Senate decided in October 2006 to condense the originally projected five-phase plan into just two; north and south of the Mall.
By shifting classes in two cycles, Garber said, the school will save money.
“It’s sort of a buyer’s market right now,” Garber continued. “Prices are escalating due to all the building going on at CSUN and UCLA.”
Unfortunately, with plans still in their early stages, inflated costs of construction couldn’t come at a more inconvenient time.
Ultimately, the Village will be comprised of 26 modular buildings, including the two that are already finished.
The bungalows scattered southeast of the Village will eventually be torn down and replaced by more attractive, permanent buildings.
In the coming months, a potentially pricey contract to demolish the Mason Street bungalows will go up for bidding.
Upon the bungalows’ demolition, tentatively scheduled for June, construction on the Center for Sciences will begin.
This new structure, which will stand where the bungalows are now, is expected to house physics, chemistry and life science courses.
Apart from the Village and Center for Sciences, two other projects of considerable size are simultaneously under construction.
The S. Mark Taper Foundation Botanical Garden, so-named after a $75,000 donation, will feature a natural stone amphitheater consistent with the Mediterranean theme.
Now in its second phase of construction, the garden should be finished late this spring.
The new, permanent Sheriff’s Office, located north of the tennis courts, is also nearing completion.
With a sigh and a “yeaahh,” Garber confirmed the projected 2011 end of construction.
“I’m excited that things are moving forward,” he said, adding that the transitions so far have been “a positive and large step in the process.”
Liz Koening’s English 84 class performs an assignment while being overseen by their professor in room 8210. ()
Skies fill with clouds over the south end of the village where the nursing program resides. ()