Long Beach City College is undergoing major construction at the Liberal Arts Campus.
The existing M and N Buildings at LAC have remained unchanged since 1935. Unfortunately, the buildings can no longer meet LBCC’s educational and facility master plans.
An alert was brought to the attention of the students attending LAC, stating that the construction phase of the new Building M will commence on February 3rd, 2020 with the start of fences surrounding Buildings M and N.
The estimated cost of the Multi-Disciplinary Facility Replacement Project is $70,096,798. State funding of nearly $21 million may be provided to help neutralize the construction cost.
The Building M Multi-Disciplinary Facility Replacement Project requires the demolition of the existing Buildings M and N.
Assistant project manager, Vincent Holguin, and Field Engineer, Kevin Chicot, provided insight on the demolition plan.
Chicot said, “The demolition process will commence with the N building during the second week of March.”
With the closure and demolition of Buildings M and N, the Foreign Language Department Office has been relocated in B-101 and foreign language classes are temporarily held within the B building.
The newly added U- Bungalows consist of reading and English classes during the construction of the M building.
Jeff Wheeler, a member of the History Archive Group and an English Professor at LBCC said, “The M and N buildings have been around for 85 years. It’s an interesting problem. You restore it and keep working with it for a while, but at a certain point, they decided that it wasn’t worth it to continue fixing it. They’d rather start over and do something a little bit different.”
The outdated M and N buildings are in need of significant repair. The heating and cooling systems were outworn and the electrical systems were insufficient to meet current demands for technology.
Elizabeth Cabral, an LBCC student said, “I took language courses in the M Building. It was always hot on the second floor and the restroom stall doors were hard to open and close.”
The new Multidisciplinary Facility is prospected to be a 3-story building of 81,970 GSF and will house Language Arts, Foreign Language, and Computer and Office Studies.
Vincent Holguin said, “I measured the height of the M building yesterday and it was 28 feet. The expected building is going to be 60 feet. It will be double the height of the current building.”
In addition, the new construction will hold a modern technology center for the Computer Information Systems and Business Technology Departments, including conference areas as well as some larger classrooms to support educational objectives.