By Luis Vasquez
East Los Angeles College is working with the city of South Gate to build a new South Gate Education Center.
The center is awaiting the approval of an environmental impact report from ELAC.
It will be presented in April to the city of South Gate and the Los Angeles Community College District board of trustees. ELAC will initialize the blueprints that would generate a new South Gate Education Center by Fall 2019.
The proposed plan would relocate the current South Gate Center from its original location on Firestone Boulevard, west to the building currently used as the South Gate adult learning center on the intersections of Santa Fe Avenue and Firestone Boulevard.
This includes a demolition of the South Gate Community Adult School to make room for a state of the art 100,000 square feet ELAC satellite campus and a parking structure with 1,500 parking spaces.
The campus will be made up of four primary buildings. The number of available instructional spaces will grow from 17 to 32 and will also see its student population increase from 5,000 to an estimated 9,000 students.
Currently the South Gate Center has a limited space for student resource centers such as financial aid EOPS, and counseling offices, the proposed plan would accommodate each office with their own building.
The new campus will also include a 5,000 square feet library. A Math and Science buildings will also be accommodated to its own cutting edge building. The Science Department will be granted fully furnished laboratories in efforts to build a stronger science program.
Associate Dean of Research Ryan Cornner, PhD., said “We (ELAC) want to give our students the best. Our students will have access to some of the best facilities within the Los Angeles Community College District.”
The city of South Gate addressed the issues of lighting and street construction that would be required for safety. Initially, Elac and the Dean of the South Gate Center Al Rios offered the city of South Gate $6 million for expenses, the city wanted more money and turned down the offer.
Cornner and Elac negotiated with the city and settled on an amount in which both parties benefited.
“The city of South Gate has been a great partner, ELAC and the city are both working hard hammering out the logistics that come into play when dealing with a project of this magnitude.
“We are doing everything possible to bring our students a brand new faculty where our students flourish academically and move on to universities across the country and be proud of being ELAC Huskies,” Cornner said.