Schematic designs are being prepared for the building of the new Los Medanos College Brentwood Center.

“There has been work over the summer to refine the schematic [conceptual] design.” Said District chief facilities planner Ray Pyle. “The design team met with the president and vice president to review the project and prepare for more user group meetings now that faculty are back from the summer.”

Since the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester, the district has been meeting with individual departments to evaluate and design spaces that meet each of the department’s needs and requirements. Departments meetings began Sept. 8 and Sept. 9 with multiple departments, each lasting 4 to 5 hours. Future meetings have been planned for Sept. 21 and 22 for further details for the Center.

As of now, no designs have been set in stone.

“We are currently in the design phase of the project. Once we complete this phase, we will be submitting the design to the Division of the State Architect for their review and approval,” said Contra Costa Community College District Communications and Community Director Timothy Leong, “This will be followed by the bid phase where we seek contractors to do the work, then the construction phase will begin approximately July 2018.”

Both Pyle and Leong project that the center would be finished and open for students and faculty by 2020.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Vice President of Instruction and Student services Kevin Horan. “We don’t want to put out schematic images now at this point because it may be completely different in the future.”

The Brentwood Center’s construction has drawn concern from Brentwood residents. Many residents were worried on how the Center’s presence would affect the traffic around the area, and others had concerns about the initial size of the center.

“Some residents did not know this was similar to an office building, and they were worried about a huge stadium in their neighborhood,” said Leong.

Leong stated that the district has addressed most of these concerns and will do their best to keep residents updated.

“We have been making regular presentations to all East County city councils, and have been updating community leaders about East County bond projects on an annual basis,” stated Leong. “In addition, the college is working on a special landing page within the LMC website to provide more up-to-date progress reports on their bond projects.  It is currently being populated with information and [we] hope to have it available soon.  The District website also information about the bond program, including our annual bond report to the community.”