Over the next five years, GCC will begin construction on a new building which aims to simplify the lives of students on campus .
The beginning of the project is scheduled for Spring 2013, but the entire campus has already begun the reorganization process.
A three-story building is going to replace Los Robles. Besides Los Robles, 14 other buildings are planned for demolition including the San Fernando, EOPS building and the Verdugo Gym.
The nine buildings affected by the remodeling process include Camino Real, San Gabriel, Aviation Arts, Administration, Sierra Madre, Sierra Nevada Gymnasium, San Rafael, Auditorium and Verdugo Gym. The inner structures of each building will be modified over the next 5 years.
The remodeling of San Gabriel has started already and the doors are open for hungry students. About $500,000 was spent for cafeteria renovation project alone. The newly remodeled cafeteria is built to speed up lunch lines by providing students with pre-cooked food and a self-serve station.
The college cafeteria is ready to accept culinary students, who won’t have a building to call their own after Los Robles is demolished later this year. The students will share the kitchen with the cafeteria staff and it will allow faculty and students to enjoy the food of future chefs.
The new building will be the new home to the Anthropology and Culinary Arts Departments on the second floor.
The first floor will contain speech, creative writing, and journalism labs as well as an expansive computer lab.
The third floor will be home to administraction which will include the Admissions, the financial aid office, student services and the assessment office.This allows all student services to be in one place.
Incoming freshmen can handle all admissions and financial related problems in one location.
Ron Nakasone said that the future GCC student can “enter the building, apply, get admitted, register for classes and receive their financial aid, all inone place.”
The current construction plan is considered as one of the most complex building projects in the history of GCC.
The estimated price of the new building by itself is $50 million. The college has already received $41.2 million from state funds. The rest of the sum will be provided by Measure G funds, which will also allocate additional money for remodeling existing buildings.
