Sometimes you must work with what you have.

Santa Barbara City College is demolishing its former athletic center, meaning students and coaches have been forced to find new places to meet, practice, and play games.

The athletic center is being torn down as the college prepares for the construction of its new athletic center, which should be finished in 2028. The building is expected to cost $105 million, with $71 million coming from Measure P bond revenue.

Before the building was closed during the fall term, the athletic center was used for classes, practice, and offices and meeting spaces for faculty.

LaDeane Hansten, the director of athletics, said students are excited for the new building, but she said it’s bittersweet for students who will be gone before it’s completed.

“The nature of a two-year community college means you are constantly working to improve things for the people coming after you, and they do that very well in their respective sports,” Hansten said. “So, we know they understand the big picture.”

During construction, classes have been moved to different rooms. The Life Fitness Center is in the basement of the campus store, and the Academic Achievement Zone for athletes has been placed behind the press boxes near La Playa Stadium.

Devin Engebretsen, who coaches the SBCC basketball and golf teams, says students are making the best of the situation despite the extra work. The basketball team now trains at Bishop Garcia Diego High School and plays games at UC Santa Barbara.

However, he said the team is just focused on improving.

“We just go to work and then we go play our games,” Engebretsen said. “I think the biggest part for us, from an athletic standpoint, would be that we just didn’t get as many home games as we normally would in the preseason.”

Engebretsen added that first-year students do not miss the athletic center because it closed before they were students. Older students are also making do with portable lockers and showers that the college brought in during the duration of the construction.

One of the biggest impacts on the team is the lack of the SBCC Holiday Classic Tournament, which the college has been hosting for nearly 40 years. The tournament now will be held in Torrance at El Camino College in collaboration with SBCC.

Engebretsen said the tournament will be one of the toughest parts of the transition as the team will travel to Monterey for three games one week and then travel to El Camino to host the tournament the next week for three games.

“Now we’re going back-to-back weeks of hotel living, so we’ll see how it goes,” he said. “Then we’ll reassess and see if we want to do it again next year (or) find something different.”

Oliver Rogers, a first-year student majoring in political science, said that even though the college has provided an alternative gym during construction, she would like a place to meet up with friends and teammates.

“It’d be nice to have access to something like that,” Rogers said. “We do use the weight room outside, but the whole area would be nice. I think our team would improve a lot if we had that done.”