Buildings north of the Mall slated to be occupied during the 2011 fall semester have failed to meet building code standards and will have to be finished by an undetermined contractor, according to an announcement at a Pierce College Council (PCC) meeting.
Seven of the nine buildings currently under construction north of the Mall were found to be out of code because the walls separating class rooms from lecture halls were not thick enough to meet fire codes.
These buildings will have to undergo further construction in order to bring them up to code, which will delay their use as classrooms in the fall semester, according to the PCC.
However, under the LACCD guidelines which were used to design and bid these projects, no more than 10 percent of the total cost can be used to repair these buildings.
This means Pierce must consolidate all of the necessary repairs and then hire a different contractor to complete the project.
The BuildLACCD program is nearly finished with most of the buildings having already been designed and contracted out, which leaves Pierce very little money to repair these buildings.
“At this point in time, I don’t foresee that we have to descope any south of the Mall projects,” said David Tsao, project director for the Swinerton management team.
Meanwhile, the trailers which make up a large portion of the Village have been slated to be replaced during the summer, and with no buildings to move into north of the Mall, there is a logistical problem of where to place Pierce College students.
The current contractor who provides the Village trailers was underbid recently, and in an effort to save money, the college decided to replace the existing trailers with less expensive ones during the summer, according to the PCC.
A new bid process was started April 26, which may make it possible for Pierce to retain its existing trailers thus maintaining space in which to hold classes.
An unused green house in the horticulture department in PIerce College May 9, 2011. (Crystal Endless 2011)