September 9, 2003

A Groundbreaking Day for Cuesta College

Look out to the east side of Cuesta College's North County Campus, past the portable classrooms and tanbark landscaping, and all most people see are some cranes moving dirt.

Sandee McLaughlin eyes the future.

"It starts to define who we are as a campus," McLaughlin, the campus' executive dean, said about the Paso Robles site's first permanent building, designed by Phillips Metsch Sweeney Moore Architects.

School officials on Wednesday will ceremoniously break ground on the $12 million Math, Science, Allied Health Building - a 23,764 square-foot structure that will allow for advanced science classes and equipment at the 6-year-old campus.

With fancy physics and chemistry laboratories, North County residents will no longer have to trek to the San Luis Obispo campus to take such courses. In addition, the Paso Robles campus will increase its class offerings.

And the new building - expected to be ready for students in January 2005 - will add some permanency to a campus that features six portable buildings. By the year 2020, school officials have plans for 10 permanent buildings as they prepare for the current enrollment - about 2,300 - to more that double.

"This will be very exciting for us because the campus just looks like it's ready to move anytime," Tina Stout, a re-entry student from Atascadero, said in reference to the portables.

The Paso Robles campus first offered classes in fall 1998, after local residents raised $4 million in start-up costs. Since then, the college has regularly added portable classrooms to keep up with its booming enrollment growth.

California voters last November passed a school bond initiative, Proposition 47, which is now paying for capital building improvements at school across the state. For Cuesta's North County

Re-printed from the San Luis Obispo Tribune
Article by Ryan Huff

Stephanie Bertoux, Marketing Coordinator
Phillips Metsch Sweeney Moore Architects
805.963.1955 phone
805. 564.8582 fax
stephanie@pmsm-architects.com

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