College Has a Gym After 19-Year Wait : Oxnard: It’s hoped the complex will propel the institution to level of services of its sister campuses.

There are no screaming fans among the 1,500 bleacher seats, no landscaping covering the patches of bare ground surrounding the building. The hands of the wall clocks are frozen at 7 o’clock.

But none of those details matter to Oxnard College students and officials, who this week christened their new gymnasium with basketball scrimmages, dance practices and racquetball games.

“I was the second person hired in the (physical education) department here,” sports coordinator Juan Hernandez said, showing off the new facility. “I’ve been waiting 20 years for this.”

As students return to Oxnard College this week after summer hiatus, they are being welcomed to explore the $5.2-million complex, which features the latest in sports education facilities.

It is a project years in the making and one that college officials hope will help propel Ventura County’s smallest community college to a level of services equal to those of its sister campuses in Ventura and Moorpark.

“It’s one of the most exciting things that’s happened on campus probably since it opened,” said Trustee Pete E. Tafoya, who represents south Oxnard on the college district governing board.

“With the kind of community we have and the shortage of recreational facilities in Oxnard, it will really have an impact,” Tafoya said. “It’s going to be a major draw for the local students who go to Moorpark or Ventura to play basketball or something else because they think (those campuses) have better facilities.”

The 56,000-square-foot building on the northeast side of the South Rose Avenue campus offers a championship-caliber basketball court, indoor volleyball, a 2,500-square-foot dance studio, four racquetball courts, weight room, training room and a handful of health-science classrooms.

“For the first time in 19 years, we’ll be able to host our own basketball games,” Oxnard College President Elise Schneider said. “We had been holding our games at Santa Clara,” a private high school several miles away.

Under an arrangement with the city of Oxnard, the gym will be available for public use on weekends, Schneider said. The college already has marketed classrooms and meeting space for rent by various community organizations.

“This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities,” Schneider said. “It will generate a significant amount of income.”

Students still signing up for classes Tuesday welcomed the new gymnasium as a much-needed venue for the college’s physical education program.

“It’s pretty nice,” said Sandra Martinez, a 27-year-old international business major. “You can tell they put a lot of time, money and effort into building it.”

Eighteen-year-old freshman David Camarena said he plans to make good use of the 28,000-square-foot hardwood court. “It looks sweet,” he said. “I like the flooring especially, and the weights.”

Oxnard College, which occupies 118 mostly vacant acres in south Oxnard, opened in 1975. Yet it remains the least completed of the three campuses that make up the Ventura County Community College District.

Tafoya has complained for years that Oxnard College, with roughly half as many students as the Moorpark and Ventura campuses, typically has been overlooked in yearly spending plans.

“Here we are with the largest community in the county and we have the smallest facility of them all,” he said. “We need to really work on completing our school.”

Schneider said passage in 1978 of the tax-cutting Proposition 13 has prevented the state from coming up with money to complete master building plans for Oxnard College.

“When I got here in July, 1989, I couldn’t believe there was a community college that didn’t have a P.E. facility,” she said. “But this is going to make a huge difference.”

As basketball and other classes began inside the gym this week, workers Tuesday were applying the finishing touches to the beige, sky-lit building.

Construction crews Tuesday were applying the last coat of paint to the interior of the lobby and some final wiring was needed to hook up the hanging clocks. Landscaping is scheduled to be completed later this term.

“There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction to see it built from the ground up,” said Dave Abraham, campus director of maintenance and operations. “We’ve been working from the first day, to the day we opened the doors.”