Work on College Center Reaches Halfway Mark

Construction of a state-of-the-art science building at Ventura College is half completed, and officials expect the $12-million project to be completed by next summer.

The three-level, 50,000-square-foot facility is the first instructional building to be erected on the college campus in nearly two decades. The last was a wing of classrooms built in 1974.

Educators say the new building--complete with laboratories and multimedia centers--will single out Ventura College as one of only a few community colleges in the state to offer cutting-edge facilities for science, mathematics and engineering.

“The sciences have changed in the last 40 years since the Ventura College campus was built,” said Bob Renger, dean of the Division of Science, Math and Engineering.

“There is a tremendous need to have our facilities reflect the kinds of laboratories that are needed today,” he said of the facility at the front of the campus on Telegraph Road.

College officials have been pushing for state funding to build the science center for years, but were stymied by repeated budget cuts and competing projects. Finally, the college was granted the money to proceed and construction crews began work in January.

The center will house all of the science programs and the mathematics and engineering departments. Officials hope to offer classes in the building by the fall of 1997.