Construction Crews Making Headway on Student Center at Allan Hancock College
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/100812_construction_allan_hancock_college_student_center/
By Gina Potthoff, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @ginapotthoff
After repeated delays caused by subcontractors, the $35 million-plus project is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2013
Construction of the One Stop Student Services Center at Allan Hancock College, which was supposed to be finished this month, most likely won’t be complete until the summer of 2013.
Crews diligently worked Monday afternoon on the Santa Maria campus project, which will cost $35 million to $37 million by the time staff and students move into the two new buildings with more than 44,000 square feet of space.
The center, designed as Hancock’s face of the Bradley Road entrance, is about 70 percent through construction, according to Kitchell project manager Chris Young.
“It’s a pretty architecturally significant building for this area,” Young said Monday.
High ceilings, seismic features and floor-to-ceiling windows ensure the center resembles no other building on campus.
Once crews finish waterproofing exterior walls, installing windows and doing other outside work, the drywall and other interior work can really begin, Young said.
Work on the center — paid in part by a $180 million Measure I bond measure passed in 2006 — has been delayed several times as subcontractors have folded or fallen through altogether, said Felix Hernandez, Hancock’s vice president of facilities and operations.
At least 20 subcontractors had to be replaced, Hernandez said, adding that Soltek Pacific Construction has been with the project for its duration.
“That’s where you lose time,” he said.
Hernandez walked through the construction site Monday, pointing to future staff offices, student services and other perks.
“This is the president’s office,” Hernandez said, pointing to a room surrounded by metal bar walls in the new building A. “Right now everybody’s spread all over the place.”
The second phase of the project will include demolishing the existing A and B buildings, along with buildings I, N-Annex, T, U, V and X. The current Student Center, in building G, will not be demolished.
Hernandez said construction of the new student center is part of the college’s six-month roll-out plan.
Staff will move into the Childcare Center Addition and Public Safety Complex at the Lompoc Valley Center in January. The student center will follow in the summer, and the baseball fields should be complete by December 2013.
Officials are hopeful this completion date will stick.
“We’re trying to beat the weather,” Young said.
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