The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

SBCC signs $85,000 deal for a new facilities master plan

City College is signing an $85,000 deal with Maas Companies to write the school’s facilities master plan which has not been updated in over 10 years.

The facilities masterplan is a strategic plan that includes arrangements such as what buildings the school will have, what funding the school will get and where that funding will go.

‘‘It is a big plan, about your entire college,’’ said Lyndsay Maas, vice president of business services—who is not affiliated with the company.

‘‘[It is] just having a plan of what we’re going to do and where we’re headed.’’

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The contract with the architecture firm is not yet signed, but soon will be, according to Maas. The process has been long. Several years of researching and gathering information during the Program Location and Land Use Master Plan has led up to this.

‘‘We are in a hurry to complete the facility masterplan because it’s been a long process that we’d like to bring to completion,’’ Maas said.

‘‘We really need this plan to move forward strategically.’’

What will be included in the plan is not decided yet. Some students hope for improvements to be made inside college buildings, such as installing air conditioning in the ones that do not yet have it.

The issue was highlighted this past week when temperatures reached the hundreds in Santa Barbara. David Panbehchi, Associated Student Government Student Trustee, said that his classmate actually had to leave class during an exam review because she was so uncomfortable in the heat.

‘‘We were reviewing for the exam and there was no AC,’’ Panbehchi said. ‘‘We were sweating like crazy.’’

He believes that issues affecting the students should be prioritized when making changes.

‘‘The school is supposed to be for the students.’’

The process started when the school put out a formal request for proposals and about five different architecture firms responded.

‘‘The company we selected was dramatically cheaper than any of the other architecture companies,’’ Maas said.

Along with the price, the school looks at the company’s expertise and experience in working with resembling colleges when selecting. Maas Companies was leading in this area, as they have written multiple different master plans at similar institutions.

‘‘Really we were looking for experience, where we could pull up one of theirs and see what it looked like,’’ Maas said.

‘‘The ones that [Maas Companies] have done were some of our favorite facility master plans, and the reason they were our favorites were that they were easy to read, easy to understand.’’

The final product will be similar to a previous plan by Maas Companies for Cabrillo Community College. The company will be working closely with the City College during the 13-week-long process of writing the masterplan. The collaboration between the school and Maas Companies is scheduled to start Nov. 1.

 

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