Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Construction Begins on Antelope Valley College’s New Building : Education: The two-story Applied Arts structure is seen as significant step toward campus’ future growth.

Antelope Valley College is preparing to break ground for its first new classroom building in more than two decades, a building that officials said will propel the campus into the 21st Century.

“This is so exciting,” said college President Allan Kurki. “This is what’s going to make it possible for us to (grow) to 20,000 students.”

The state finance department on Thursday approved $7.5 million for the construction of a two-story Applied Arts building at the college. The building will include 10 lecture rooms, 24 faculty offices and 16 to 18 laboratories. At 54,000 square feet, it will be the largest building on the 125-acre campus.

“This new Applied Arts building is really going to provide the classroom space we desperately need,” Kurki said. “Even for me it’s hard to overstate the significance of this one.”

For the past several years, the college has had an enrollment of about 10,000 students. If space, and more importantly, funding were available, the number of students would increase, Kurki said.

Over the years, the college has modified portions of buildings to increase the number of classrooms and has also used trailers as temporary rooms to meet demand.

“We don’t schedule as many classes as we’d like to during peak periods early in the morning and the evening period,” Kurki said. “This (new building) really will open up a lot of things for us--the new technologies, things that are up to date.”

Courses in desktop publishing, computer-aided design, television, technical illustration/commercial art, journalism, nursing and emergency medicine will be offered in the building.

Construction on the Applied Arts building may begin as early as June and is expected to take 21 months. It is expected to be ready for use in the fall of 1996.

The state is also expected to fund the $3 million needed to equip the building, Kurki said. That money would be approved next year, he said.

Kurki described the new building and the proposed 100-acre, 10,000-student satellite campus in Palmdale as the college’s “big steps.” Approval of the $100-million second campus, he said, could come from the state as early as August.