(Mission Times Courier, San Diego, Ca) - It is one of the largest and most successful of California's 108 community colleges, and as the largest college in the San Diego Community College District, Mesa College serves as the city's busiest transfer college. Student activity isn't the only thing keeping this campus humming. It is also in the midst of a massive campus modernization and expansion that will help Mesa meet the education and job-training needs of San Diego students for decades to come.

As part of the District's Proposition S and N construction bond program, Mesa College is undergoing a $249.4 million expansion involving more than 20 projects, including 10 new instructional facilities, several major building renovations, a new parking structure and expanded parking areas, and a major infrastructure project. The campus build-out will help support the eventual enrollment of 25,000 students in numerous degree and certificate programs.

"As we deal with the most challenging financial crisis in our state's history, the future of education has never been more important.  Thanks to the confidence of San Diego voters -- even as we deal with the current crisis -- we are creating facilities that promote the economic development of our students and the communities we serve." said Dr. Rita M. Cepeda, president of San Diego Mesa College.  "We're building more than structures with four walls.  We're building futures. We're helping students achieve their dreams and we're doing that with the very best faculty and the very best facilities."

Since construction began, Mesa has completed five projects, including the Humanities, Language Arts and Multicultural Studies Building. Currently, there are four projects under construction or nearing completion.  They include:

Allied Health Building
Architects:  Delawie Wilkes Rodrigues Barker
The $24.9 million three-story, 50,000 square-foot Allied Health Building will provide training facilities and classroom space for degree and certificate programs for five healthcare fields: Dental Assisting, Health Information Technology, Medical Assisting, Physical Therapy Assistant and Radiologic Technology. (The San Diego Workforce Partnership identifies four of these fields as among the 10 most in-demand healthcare fields through 2014.)  The Allied Health Building is designed to obtain, at minimum, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).  It will be completed in September. 

East Campus Improvement Project
Architects:  Delawie Wilkes Rodrigues Barker
The $34 million project includes an 1,100-space, four-level parking structure that opened in March to grateful thumbs-up from student, along with a new 7,000 square-foot police substation, a complete road realignment and a new east campus entry.  Photovoltaic panels will be installed on the top level of the parking lot to harvest solar energy, offsetting the needs for the new police station and the neighboring Allied Health Building. The parking structure includes some unique "green" features, including the addition of fly ash, a coal combustion product, to serve as strengthening agent and reduce the amount of concrete needed. As an open structure, it requires no mechanical ventilation.  The police substation, when it is completed this summer, will be the District's first to meet LEED criteria, and is expected to obtain a Silver certification

All Weather Track Facility
Architects:  CMX Sports / Paige Design Group
The renovation of the athletic facility includes new artificial turf with regulation-size fields for football and soccer, an all-weather synthetic track suitable for world-class track and field events, an upper field event area, ADA-compliant pedestrian ramp, restroom and companion seating.  The track will include areas for events such as long/triple jump, the steeplechase water jump, pole vault, high jump, shot put, hammer/discus, and the javelin. The project includes approximately 100,000 square feet of artificial turf, five acres of synthetic track and bleacher capacity for 4,500 spectators. It is scheduled to open in late September.

Modular Village
The Modular Village provides approximately 20,000 square feet of temporary space to support student services and to provide 'swing space' to support faculty, staff and students during the construction of other facilities.

Several other projects are in the design stage or are undergoing campus review for instructional space and technology needs. These include new buildings for Student Services building, Math and Science, Instructional Technology and major renovations of the college's cafeteria and bookstore.

Of these, the Student Services Center is next in the construction pipeline. Designed by architects Hanna Gabriel Wells, the four-story, 85,000 square feet building will include new facilities for Admissions, Financial Aid, Evaluations and Testing, Counseling, Student Government, Disabled Student Services, and other services. The building will include several classrooms, conference areas, a café and an express elevator between the lower parking lot and the upper campus.

All of the departments will be arranged around an open four-level atrium, where students can interact with each other and the various departments in a single location.  Each floor will open up onto a series of outdoor terraces that move up the hillside and a grand stair connects the upper and lower plazas to form a bold new campus entryway. The colors of the building relate to the colors and textures of the trees that cover the hillside, connecting the building to its location on campus and creating a new north entryway to the campus.

In keeping with the District's Green Building Policy, the building is designed to meet LEED Silver certification, and to have energy savings exceeding the state requirements by at least 10%. Projected energy savings of 340,000 kWh annually are 38% better than state requirements.  Water-efficient plumbing, irrigation and landscape will result in a water savings of 40% on the building use and 50% on landscape.

Of the Green Building Policy, Board of Trustees President Rich Grosch stated, "It reflects the commitment of our Board members that we continuously demonstrate authentic environmental stewardship of the resources the people of San Diego have entrusted to our care."
The $1.555 billion Propositions S and N construction bond program, managed by Gafcon, Inc. is providing for new instructional facilities, major renovations and campus-wide infrastructure projects at City, Mesa and Miramar Colleges, and six Continuing Education campuses. Learn more at www.sdccdprops-n.com.

Submitted by Ursula Kroemer