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DESCRIPTION:FROM IJ\n\nCollege of Marin trustees will vote Tuesday on plans to move 
 forward with the last - and most controversial - construction project in 
 the school's $249.5 million overhaul.\n\nThe new Gateway complex will 
 replace four academic buildings and is intended to be the public face of 
 the school's Kentfield campus.\n\n"If you go around Kentfield right now, 
 all you see is either the backs of buildings or a parking lot," said Bill 
 Scott, chairman of the college's bond oversight committee. "The Gateway 
 would be what you see as you're coming down Sir Francis Drake (Boulevard). 
 It's going to change the whole look of the campus."\n\nBut critics of the 
 plan - including some members of the Board of Trustees - have expressed 
 concerns about the project's cost, while others have questioned whether the 
 complex should be built at all.\n\n"I think the Gateway Center is 
 ill-advised and unnecessary," said former Assemblywoman Vivien Bronshvag, a 
 Kentfield resident who takes classes at College of Marin. "It is my opinion 
 that (the trustees) did not spend the $249 million wisely, and that the 
 Gateway Center will be the folly that caps this whole 
 misconstruction."\n\nThe new, 55,000-square-foot Gateway complex would sit 
 at the corner of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and College Avenue in the 
 space currently occupied by four academic buildings - the Harlan Center, 
 Olney Hall and auditorium, Business and Management Center and 
 Administrative Center - as well as the Taqueria Mexican Grill de Marin, a 
 popular\nAdvertisement\nrestaurant. The building would include about 15 
 classrooms, three to four computer labs, faculty offices for the English, 
 communications and social science departments and a 200-seat auditorium. It 
 would also include offices for the college district 
 administration.\n\nReplace or repair?\n\nWith the exception of the 
 taqueria, the buildings the Gateway would replace are among those 
 identified by a 2004 consultant's report as those most in need of repair. 
 The report noted that more than 90 percent of the state's community college 
 buildings were in better shape than those at the College of Marin, and that 
 the college's Administrative Center was in the worst condition of 
 all.\n\n"All of those buildings are pretty degraded and not seismically 
 sound," said Scott, a labor-management consultant who has worked with the 
 Sonoma-Lake Building Trades Council. "Those two up front that will be going 
 (the Administrative Center and Olney Hall) would be almost impossible to 
 rehabilitate without tearing them down."\n\nThose buildings are in such 
 poor shape, said Scott and other officials, that it makes better financial 
 sense to replace them than to repair them.\n\n"There's a rule of thumb that 
 says if the cost of renovation exceeds 50 percent of the cost to replace a 
 building, then it makes more sense to replace it," said V-Anne Chernock, 
 who heads the building program as the college's director of 
 modernization.\n\nNot everyone agrees. In her campaign for the college 
 board, trustee-elect Diana Conti questioned why the college was using the 
 $249.5 million voters approved in a 2004 facilities bond to pay for new 
 buildings rather than repairing the school's existing structures.\n\n"When 
 the board made the decision to put its bond money into a few buildings, 
 rather than spread it over all the buildings on both campuses, that was 
 predicated on the assumption that there would be matching state funds," 
 said Conti, who will take her seat on the board Tuesday - just in time to 
 choose one of two architects for the project. "It's obvious to me that the 
 state is in such dire shape that that's not going to happen. I'm not 
 opposed to the Gateway project per se, but I believe it needs to be looked 
 at more carefully."\n\nLoss of state funding\n\nChernock acknowledged that 
 the school had hoped to pay for almost half the cost of the project with 
 state funding. That funding fell through, Chernock said, when the 
 California Community College chancellor's office determined that the 
 College of Marin already had more buildings than it needed.\n\n"Based on 
 the information the district submitted to us, they're at 225 percent of the 
 standard for office space and at 187 percent of the standard for lecture 
 space," said Frederick G. Harris, assistant vice chancellor for college 
 finance and facilities planning with the state Community College 
 chancellor's office.\n\n"Now, you can be over a 100 percent capacity load 
 to qualify for a modernization project, but you need to be bringing that 
 'overbuilt' status down by consolidating and utilizing space in more 
 efficient ways," Harris said. "There's been no evidence given to us" that 
 the district is doing so, he added.\n\nWhile Chernock expects the Gateway 
 to cost about $33.6 million, only $17.5 million remains in bond funds 
 committed to the project. Yet Chernock believes another $16.1 million could 
 be made available through money saved from some of the college's earlier 
 building projects, thanks to lower-than-expected construction bids and 
 quicker completion times. For example, the TransTech Complex at the 
 college's Indian Valley Campus in Novato, which was scheduled to be 
 completed next summer, is now on track to be finished in January or 
 February, Chernock said.\n\nIn addition to the project's cost, critics have 
 bemoaned the loss of parking - Chernock expects all construction on the 
 Kentfield campus to result in the loss of about 200 spaces - and the 
 taqueria.\n\n"Parking is an enormous issue," Bronshvag said. "You can end 
 up coming to class 10 or 20 minutes late because you're looking for a 
 space."\n\nYet college officials say their own studies suggest only 60 
 percent of the school's parking spaces are occupied, even during peak 
 hours.\n\n"We've done our counts at around 10:30 a.m., at the time of the 
 most impact," Chernock said. "There's no need for more parking."\n\nAs for 
 the taqueria, Chernock said the college would help the Mexican restaurant 
 to relocate, but had no plans to find a place for it on campus. The college 
 owns the land where the restaurant sits.\n\n"The taqueria operators are 
 well aware that they will be evicted," Chernock said. "We'll do the best we 
 can to help them find a spot to land, but we can't promise 
 anything."\n\nCollege trustees authorized the Gateway project on Jan. 20 
 and began the process of choosing an architect on June 23. While the 
 college relied on district staff to choose designs and architects for the 
 other six structures in its building program, the board chose to hold a 
 design competition for the Gateway. After screening 29 applicants, the 
 college gave $25,000 each to four architects to come up with a "design 
 concept" for the building.\n\nOn Tuesday, the board will choose between two 
 of those applicants - a joint effort between TLCD of Santa Rosa and Mark 
 Cavagnero Associates of San Francisco; and ED 2 International of San 
 Francisco, whose architects designed the College of Marin's new 
 Science/Math complex. The board viewed both designs at a Nov. 17 workshop, 
 although trustee-elect Conti was not present for that meeting.\n\n"It's 
 interesting that the final two firms both won awards in 2009 from AIA 
 (American Institute of Architects)," said Peter Wong, senior principal for 
 design for ED 2 International. "This building is going to be a 
 landmark."\n\nShould the board select an architect on Tuesday, Chernock 
 expects the design for the Gateway to be finished in 2010, reviewed by the 
 Division of the State Architect throughout 2011 and built between 2012 and 
 2014.\n\nRead more Ross, Kentfield & Greenbrae stories at the IJ's Ross, 
 Kentfield & Greenbrae section.\n\nI am student senate rep. for novato 
 campus (IVC)\n\nFROM 
 http://twitter.com/davidaquinley\n\nhttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000031433391\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/12/08/18631795.php
SUMMARY:COLLEGE OF MARIN BOARD MEET - KENTFIELD - DECIDES ON BUILDING GATEWAY?
LOCATION:AGENDA http://www.marin.edu/WORD-PPT/dec82009specialemergencybdmtg.pdf
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/12/08/18631795.php
DTSTART:20091209T023000Z
DTEND:20091209T063000Z
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