Administration, faculty, and staff gathered on the south side of Building D to celebrate the end to renovations of the science building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a tour of the new facilities.
The ceremony took place on April 4 and concluded a multi-year project that started with planning back in July 2015, with demolition taking place later that fall, and an official start of construction beginning in Sept. 2016.
Paul Creason, Dean of the School of Health, Kinesiology, Science and Math, mentioned during a short speech at the beginning of the ceremony, that Building D was built in 1972, and at the time was one of the few three story buildings on campus.
Superintendent-President Reagan Romali was on hand to take part in the ceremony and she was especially excited about the additions to the anatomy department.
“The new lab space really makes anatomy come to life,” Romalli said.
President of the board of trustees, Sunny Zia, had a similar outlook concerning how the newly renovated building would impact the students learning experience.
“Our students are going to have access to class act classrooms, and top of the line technologies, because this a state of the art classroom facility,” Zia said.
Richard Dicker, an assistant professor for Allied Health, was happy to show people on the tour one of the new laboratories.
“The medical lab here is very modern, and it’s very clean and bright,” Dicker said.
He also mentioned that it was beneficial for Allied Health and the vocational nursing building to continue to be near enough to each other to allow students and faculty to quickly walk from one to the other.
“It’s in a good location, nursing is just right there,” Dicker said as he gestured toward the southern door of the building.
The renovation of Building D, along with other improvements and construction on campus, are covered by Measure E and Measure LB, a pair of bonds that are state funded initiatives to improve campus safety, and to upgrade schools across California.
According to the vender contract and expenditures list, the renovations for the state of the art classroom facility includes the purchase of new furniture in the building with a cost of over $300,000.
New technology equipment, such as computers, networking equipment, and A/V equipment, all costing around $514,000.
Additionally, around $840,000 was spent on architect services, $6,600,000 was spent on construction, and just under $300,000 was spent on inspection services.
According to Stacey Toda, the associate director of Public Relations and Marketing, this will be the last ribbon cutting ceremony this semester.