Funding from the state has been offered to El Camino College to replace certain buildings on campus, but the college must match it to receive it, college officials said during a board of trustees meeting.
The state may provide ECC with $29 million to replace the Music Building and $64.5 million for a Science Complex, totaling $93.5 million which the college must meet by 2026, according to a presentation at the meeting Friday, May 2.
Loïc Audusseau, interim vice president of Administrative Services, said a new bond measure must be passed to match the funding as ECC does not have enough money left in the $350 million Measure E bond passed by voters in 2012.
ECC has $40 million in funds remaining to withdraw from the 2012 bond, according to an expenditures report dated March 31.
“There is a certain amount of state funding for each project that is secure; that we know we will receive. As long as we can, at the very least, match that amount,” Audusseau said.
ECC plans to hire and rely on consultants to get expertise on the situation and to determine whether it would be more beneficial for a new bond measure be on the 2026 ballot or the 2028 ballot.
There is no guarantee that the money from the state will still be there for ECC’s future projects in 2028.
Audusseau said the cost of each project is only going up and therefore ECC needs local contributions from the district to match what the state has provided.
A slide presented to the Board of Trustees said ECC would need a minimum of $100 million from local contributors to make the replacement of the Music Building possible.
ECC would need another $125 million for the Science Complex.
These buildings being replaced would benefit ECC because the current buildings have aging infrastructure, health and safety risks, and do not meet modern instruction needs for STEM, Hyflex and interdisciplinary learning, according to Audusseau’s presentation.
Audusseau emphasized the need to commit to these two projects specifically.
“The Music Building project is a project that is way overdue, so excuse my French, they might get tired of us, always giving us an extra chance every time, every time,” Audusseau said.
Vice President of Academic Affairs Carlos Lopez said the order of which the buildings are replaced matters.
“The Music Building has to go first, because if we don’t do the Music Building, then we won’t clear space for the science center. It’s what is called a phasing problem when you do academic buildings,” Lopez said.
Shaun Blaylock, managing partner from ALMA Strategies, a consulting company based in Sacramento which is contracted by ECC for the Music Building, said the process will take a team effort.
“We are now doing a scope change with the committee of instructors and administrators, and so forth. We are going through that process right now of what will this building look like,” Blaylock said.
Blaylock and the rest of the team plan on sending in a visual of the future building by July 1. Once the state approves the preplanning, the replanning will start relatively soon.
Blaylock said that nothing is a sure thing and there are many factors to making this plan work.
“It depends on whether or not the state will accept the scope change, … whether the district will have its matching funds and whether or not, can the state and everyone get their act together and be able to do that,” Blaylock said.
