Standing in front of a massive hill of dirt, Santa Barbara City College President Erika Endrijonas on Monday called the groundbreaking of the college’s new physical education and athletics building a moment more than a decade in the making.
During a public ceremony, Endrijonas said the project will bring the campus “into a new era.”
“(It’s) just an amazing, modern, useful building for this community,” Endrijonas said.
Crews are now preparing to enter the next phase of construction for the building located near the community college’s East Campus, which includes installing and reinforcing the cement.
Construction on the new 77,187-square-foot building is expected to finish by the middle of 2028. The four-floor building will have an NCAA gymnasium, multiple classrooms, dance and exercise rooms, a fitness center and employee offices.
Just like its predecessor, it will also serve as a shelter for the community during natural disasters.
The groundbreaking was attended by members of the SBCC Board of Trustees, state of California and Santa Barbara County representatives and City of Santa Barbara Mayor Randy Rowse.
The new building is a years-long project for the community college. Officials attempted to fund the project in 2014 with Measure S, which failed to pass.
The college tried again in 2024 with Measure P, which proposed extending a previous bond, Measure V, until 2061.
Extending the bond past its original end date of 2040 would bring in $198 million for the college.
Voters approved Measure P with more than 64% of the vote.
SBCC Board of Trustees President Jonathan Abboud said that the community college made the case leading up to the 2024 election that a new athletics building was not optional, but “necessary and overdue.”
The old building — built in 1963 — had asbestos in its walls and lead pipes. It was also not seismically safe.
Abboud said if SBCC failed to secure the funding for the athletics building, the college would have had to return state funds allocated for construction.
If that had happened, the community would have lost out on the taxes they paid, he said.
“But the voters recognized this, and they acted, and they trusted us, and here we are because they wanted us to deliver this project,” he said.
Once the funding was secured, SBCC in May 2025 moved to approve the project. Demolition of the former athletics building began that fall.
Crews removed 90,000 square feet of material containing asbestos, according to Shane Mohan, a representative from Kitchell, a construction management company. That work took about 18 weeks to complete.
Once the asbestos was removed, crews began tearing down the building. The demolition of the old building led to 11,000 tons of material. Ninety-five percent of it was recycled, Mohan said.
Workers recently finished stabilizing the site’s foundation. California Geological Survey and the Division of the State Architect need to inspect the work before the next phase can begin, according to Mohan.
Mohan said the project team hopes to receive approvals in the next few weeks.
