The public is invited to join Hartnell College in celebration of the start of construction
on its new
Soledad Education Center with a groundbreaking ceremony at 11 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 8.
The 16,750-square-foot multipurpose educational center is being built on 3.7 acres
at the
northeast corner of Metz Road and Orchard Lane, across from San Vicente Elementary
School.
The general contractor is Dilbeck & Sons, and the design architect is In Studio
Architecture.
Scheduled to open in spring 2021, the building will include four classrooms and both
wet and
dry science laboratories, as well as a Student Success Center, a courtyard and a community
room.
Solar panels on the site are expected to meet about 95 percent of the center’s electrical
needs. A
bus pullout will enable regular stops by Monterey-Salinas Transit, which now offers
free rides to
all Hartnell students at any time to any destination within its service area.
The Soledad center is being funded through Measure T, a $167 million bond measure
approved
in November 2016 by voters in the Hartnell Community College District. An expansion
of the
King City Education Center, doubling it in size, is also a Measure T project. A groundbreaking
there is anticipated sometime this December.
Hartnell also is building an education center in Castroville, serving north Monterey
County, and
a new nursing and health sciences building on its Main Campus in Salinas.
In addition to college officials, participants in the ceremony on the Soledad site
will include
Soledad Mayor Fred Ledesma, Soledad school district Superintendent Tim Vanoli, Monterey
County Supervisor Chris Lopez and students from the Soledad Youth Council.
In recent weeks, Hartnell has held public forums in King City, Soledad, Gonzales and
Castroville
to seek input from elected officials, educators and employers about how the new centers
can best
meet the long-term needs of the college and Salinas Valley communities.
During an Oct. 29 forum in the Gonzales Police Department conference room, Padilla-Chavez
stressed that economic well-being at the individual, family and community levels is
the
overarching goal of the new centers and Measure T as a whole.
“We’re trying to very much harness that investment to make sure our students complete
their
education, so that they can contribute economically to their families and also to
our
communities,” she said.
“When the conversation took place on the board about issuing new bonds, it was keenly
acknowledged that we now we had an opportunity to fully align the programs of our
college to
meet the economic needs of the community.”