To combat concerns around aging infrastructure and the potential for increased flooding, Delta College is looking to update its Facilities Master Plan, focusing on the Stockton campus, the South Campus at Mountain House, the Manteca Center and a potential north county location.
“The purpose of the facilities master plan is to guide a development of facilities over a period of time. This case, I think it’s 5 to 10 years… to develop a plan for capital expenditures related to projects that might come up,” said the Managing Principal at tBP/Architecture, Inc. Phil Newsom, who is a part of the firm hired to help develop the Facilities Master plan, at Zoom call during an April 4 Facilities Committee meeting.
A member of tBP/Architecture, Amy Jane Frater, explained the updated plan step-by-step and what issues the executive committee addressed.
“It is crucial to develop facilities to be flexible and agile… the college is facing a significant burden of deferred maintenance… access to technology is mixed. It’s getting harder to upgrade existing buildings for new technology,” said a PowerPoint presentation presented in the meeting.
Frater went into more detail on changes and needs for new buildings at all campuses, as well as more detail on things that have the potential impact of rising sea levels at the Stockton Campus.
“While the Stockton Campus is not in a flood zone, there have been consistent problems with flooding, even in dry periods. Things like the orchestra pits… that is a potential problem with sea levels,” said Frater
During the meeting, Newsom reminded the committee that “facility plans need to be achievable,” and that any renovations made or construction done must have funding from the state or local government.
A survey taken with students, staff, and faculty found that most buildings need rooms for student/faculty meetings, the need to bring more places for students to engage in collegiate life, fulfill community needs for a permanent facility at Mountain House — the campus currently only has portable units — and discuss the potential to create a campus to serve the North County, according to the presentation.
Gary Moon, president of tBP/Architecture, then guided the attendees through three different option plans that he described as “a rough sketch,” for renovations, new construction, or demolition at the Stockton campus. He said that any of the options could change in the future based on more research incoming throughout the next few months.
The next step in the process is to have community college open houses on this topic to get feedback on the different options.
“Members of the college community can discuss the options, give their own ideas, and then do some rating to tell us what their preferences are… This committee will come back on the sixth and look at those results and come up with the preferred option. The option is what gets developed into the recommendations,” said Frater.
Meetings for the plans of San Joaquin Delta College Campuses are planned to be held May 6 and May 20 at 1 p.m. The location will be announced at a later date.