The construction project is $2.58 million over budget according to a Prop S and N update given by Vice President of Administrative Services Ron Perez and Mesa College Campus Project Manager Diane Malone on April 6.

“Bottom-line is we’re $2.6 million over budget and what we’re looking at is cost-cutting measures to make sure we’re getting everything we need in our Facilities Master Plan,” Perez said.

Unexpected infrastructure problems, old pipes that need to be replaced beneath the ground where the new Math and Science Building is scheduled for construction, have forced Mesa College’s tight $441 million dollar budget into the red.

“What we found out about doing infrastructure,” said Perez, “is that you never know what’s in the ground until you start digging it up.”

Now the 22-member Campus Facility Master Plan Committee must dig up ways to save money in order to correct the budget.

In order to cut costs, the B-100 building, which would have been vacated once all buildings were built, may now house the Student Health Center, the American Sign Language program and the Bridges program.

To further conserve funds, a conference center slated to be put at the base of the Student Services Building under construction in the north parking lot has been scrapped because a conference area has already been planned for construction in the proposed Cafeteria and Bookstore Building.

“We didn’t think it was frugal, fiscally responsible, to put two conference centers on both sides of the campus,” Perez said.

The Cafeteria and Bookstore Building was chosen for conferences because of the ease of transporting food, if necessary, to the attendees of the conferences.

Tim McGrath, Vice President of Instruction, and Chris Sullivan, Interim Dean of Humanities, have been working to get the conference center into the second story of the Cafeteria and Bookstore Building.

The final measure to fixing the budget is to transfer the Facilities Department from the Reprographics Facilities Stockroom to the racquetball courts that will be remodeled behind the gym.

The physical spot for the Cafeteria and Bookstore Building has been swapped with the original area designated for the Instructional Technology Building. This is due to the fact that the current cafeteria cannot be torn down until the new one is completed and running.

The Communications Department is being added to the Social Behavioral Science Building due to an error.

“I don’t know how it happened but communications got left out. They were always a part of that program,” Perez said.

According to Perez the oversight could have happened due to the transition of deans or committee members.

The construction programs are using a new, state-of-the-art system called design-build. In contrast to the old system where designers and contractors meet when design in completed, in the design-build system the fabricators and pre-fabricators team up in order to create a team proposal that includes desires from the designers and fee’s from the contractors.

“They [design proposals] are selected based on both their qualifications and their fees,” explained Malone, “It’s a good balancing act for a public works project.”

The project budgets are formulated based on the square footage of the building, the furniture, fixtures and equipment and the infrastructure costs. An additional 10 percent contingency is built in.

“It’s very intelligently done to estimate how much that building will cost at a certain point in time,” said Malone.

The Facilities Master Plan and construction schedule is being accelerated to keep the projects within budget.

Because of the recession, the steel for the Math and Science Building was $500 – $600 thousand under budget. These savings were put back into the overall master plan budget.

“At some point prices are going to rise and we’ve seen the potential for possible drastic rises,” Malone said.

Perez added that because of the faster construction schedule students, staff and faculty will have to move buildings more than the originally promised single time.

“I’m so happy to be at Mesa College. I think that the potential, and what has been done so far, is just wonderful. It’s a great campus and I enjoyed meeting so many of you and working with so many of you,” Malone said.