L.A. Higher Education Facilities Start Construction Projects
LOS ANGELES — Construction started on two projects for the Los Angeles Community College District and the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science.
Officials at the Los Angeles Community College District celebrated the start of construction of a new performing and fine arts complex at East Los Angeles College with a groundbreaking ceremony.
The July event celebrated the new $65 million, 160,000-square-foot facility that will house more than 2,000 pieces of art from the Vincent Price Collection, worth an estimated $5 million.
“With this new building, we finally have a home worthy of this outstanding collection,” says Ernest Moreno, president of the college.
The complex will feature a 77,078-square-foot, two-story recital hall that will include seating for 335 people. The facility will also include spaces for painting, sculpture, design and drawing studios, and rehearsal rooms.
The 42,110-square-foot theater building will house a 167-seat drama theater, a black-box theater with 118 seats, a costume shop, and rehearsal and makeup rooms.
The complex, which is scheduled to be completed in spring 2010, is part of LACCD’s building program that includes $2.2 billion in bond funding to renovate, modernize and improve the district’s nine colleges.
Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science officials also recently celebrated the groundbreaking for a $43 million life sciences research and nursing education building, which is the largest single investment in south Los Angeles in the last 25 years, according to the university.
“We consider this building and the many opportunities it represents to be a key part of the rebirth of south Los Angeles,” Says Susan Kelly, president and CEO of the university. “Not only is this new facility the first comprehensive nursing school to be built in California in decades and the first ever in south Los Angeles, it is the first new building on our campus in a quarter century.”
The two-story, 63,000-square foot building will be located adjacent to the university’s main administration building. It will house spaces for laboratories, clinical research and support functions the College of Science and Health.
The Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing will also be located in the building. The program is expected to help relieve a nursing shortage in California that is especially acute in south Los Angeles, according to school officials.
The Federal Health Resources and Services Agency estimates that California will need more than 42,000 additional nurses to meet demand.
National firm HOK is the architect for the project; ggkkworks, of Irvine, is serving as general contractor; and S.L. Leonard and Associates, headquartered in Camarillo, is construction manager. The project is expected to be completed by fall 2009.
Charles Dew University was founded after the Watts riots in 1965. Since 1971, more than 500 medical doctors, 2,500 specialist physicians, 2,000 physician assistants, and hundreds of other, mostly minority, health professionals have graduated from the university.