Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : College to Get $1 Million to Convert Old Library

The state will give Antelope Valley College $1 million for the conversion of the school’s 33-year-old library into a student learning center.

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The community college is nearing completion on the construction of a two-story library that will be more than twice the size of the one now in use. With remodeling, the old 14,000-square-foot library building will allow for the consolidation and expansion of learning labs scattered around campus, said Bill Fellers, assistant superintendent of facilities planning.

“It should really be a fantastic facility,” he said. “We now operate in very tight quarters off of the bookstore and in different locations. This will bring everything on campus together in one area.”

The learning center will offer self-help and assisted math, reading and writing labs as well as computers. It will also house disabled student services.

Remodeling is expected to take about a year, with the center planned for opening in the fall of 1995.

State funding has already been provided for $120,000 in preliminary work related to the remodeling. Approval of the $1 million in construction funds leaves the college needing an estimated $500,000 to furnish the building. Fellers said the college is hoping to also receive that from the state.

The school most recently broke ground on a $1.6-million child development center. With nearly 9,000 square feet, the center will serve the dual purpose of providing another day-care opportunity in the community and offering early childhood education students a chance for hands-on experience. The state is paying nearly $1.4 million of the construction cost.

Also last month, the state Department of Finance approved $7.5 million for the construction of a two-story applied arts building at the college, the school’s first new classroom building in more than two decades. 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.

Construction of the applied arts building may begin as early as June and is expected to take 21 months. It will be ready for use in the fall of 1996. The state is also expected to fund the $3 million needed to equip the building.

The college, with an enrollment of slightly less than 10,000, is also seeking state approval of a $100-million, 10,000-student satellite campus on 100 acres in Palmdale. That approval could come as early as August.

Fellers said the new $6-million library building, at 33,500 square feet, will provide students more than twice as much space than in the school’s old library building, built in 1961.