CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — On Tuesday, Oct. 8, the Del Mar College Board of Regents got a sneak peek at the Heritage Campus renovation projects, which include the Memorial Building, Viking Hall and the William F. White, Jr. Library.
In 2014, Del Mar College district voters approved a $157 million bond referendum to fund capital improvements on the Heritage and Windward campuses.
"It’s been a very productive 10 years and we’re very proud of what’s been accomplished," Executive Vice President and COO Lenora Keas said.
Keas said although COVID and inflation played a role in the delay of these projects, the outcome was pretty good, considering there were five different projects in motion all around the same time.
The projects included the following construction for the General Academic and Music Building Phase II (GAMBII) and renovation of the Memorial Classroom Building (now Memorial Building), the Fine Arts Center Music Building (now Viking Hall) and the William F. White, Jr. Library on the Heritage Campus.
“When you think about it as Del Mar College continues to function with all of our classes and our staff with each project you had to move into another facility, possibly even renovate it to accommodate what was going on so that the services for our students could continue," Keas said.
Creating and preparing for huge project like this bond takes time she added.
"You can’t really start them all at the same time," Keas said.
According to Del Mar College, this also included the renovation of a building at the corner of Ayers and Edwards Streets. It was previously used as a bookstore that now serves as the DMC Police Station.
Not only did they work on these two campuses, but they also created the Oso Creek campus on the Southside of Corpus Christ, with a bond that was approved in 2016.
"So I think when you look at all that was accomplished it makes a lot of sense that it takes a period of time to do that and do it well," Keas said.
Over at the Windward Campus, the projects included the expansion of the Emerging Technology Building and the construction of the Workforce Development Center.
The capital improvement costs for the three buildings over at the Heritage campus represented a total cost of $62,077,131, which is almost 40% of the $157 million bond referendum that passed in 2014.
The total costs for each renovation project include $17,776,059 for the Memorial Building, $12,221,464 for Viking Hall and $28,245,275 for White Library.
