SAN MARCOS – Palomar College officials are scheduled to kick off construction of a $27.4 million science building tomorrow – the first classrooms built on the campus in more than 25 years.Called the High Technology Laboratory and Classroom Building, the three-story, 107,000-square-foot structure will include 10 lecture rooms, 20 labs and faculty office space. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for noon tomorrow.
Classes that will be held in the building will include biology, microbiology, chemistry, astronomy, geology, oceanography, physics, geography and aeronautical sciences.
The structure, to be built on three acres north of the library and across from the college's arboretum on Comet Circle Drive, is expected to take about two years to complete, college officials said.
After many years to secure funding, the start of construction "demonstrates that need and careful planning do pay off in the long term for those with considerable patience," interim President Richard Jones said yesterday.
"The new science building is an exciting major step for Palomar College and its new master plan for the first two decades of the 21st century."
Sara Thompson, interim dean of mathematics and natural and health sciences, said the project "is a very important event for all the science departments, the college and our future students. "It will be state-of-the-art in technology for laboratory and lecture classrooms, and it's exciting to think of serving students in such well-planned and spacious classrooms."
The building will allow the science disciplines to add sections to courses that are currently overcrowded and new curriculum that has been constrained by existing facilities, most of them more than 30 years old, said Michael Rourke, former dean of Palomar's math and natural and health sciences divisions.
"Most of Palomar's existing labs were not built to support what needs to happen today in a modern science lab," he said. "This building is a long time coming, and it's wonderful for both our faculty and our students that it's finally happening."
Optimum flexibility was a big consideration in the design. It will allow classrooms and offices to be converted into additional lab space as the college grows, Rourke said.
The building was funded by the state Chancellor's Office capital outlay project. It was designed by Marlene Imirzian Architects and Associates Ltd., and will be built by C.E. Wylie Construction Co. under the management of C.W. Driver, all of San Diego.
Rourke, Bob Ebert, a retired life sciences professor, and Candi Francis, a life sciences professor who is on sabbatical, will be guest speakers at tomorrow's ceremony.
The three were heavily involved with a group of 21 faculty and staff members who worked with the architects on the building's design. Members visited other science labs around Southern California seeking ideas. Input also came from faculty and staff from all the departments that would benefit from the building,
"Several members of the task force were involved with a National Science Foundation effort to improve higher education science facilities so that the facilities would improve instruction," Rourke said.
"We had an interest in building a facility that meets the needs of a top-notch science program, but that also was an educational tool in itself."
John Berhman: (760) 737-7577; john.berhman@uniontrib.com