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Vista College President Judy Walters gave Peralta Community College District Trustees a power-point view last week of what the college’s new Center Street campus will look like when it opens next fall, in hopes of showing that the six-story downtown structure is worth its $65 million price tag and the years of meetings, litigation, and struggle it took to bring it into the world. 

The trustees seemed convinced, with Trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen calling the long road to the building’s construction “an incredible story. It’s something that should be written in a book, when all of this is finished.” 

During a late afternoon special trustee meeting at Vista’s current Milvia Street campus last Thursday, Walters, Peralta General Services Director Sadiq Ikharo, and representatives of construction project designers Ratcliff Architects described a gleaming, spacious structure centered around a glass-topped atrium running the entire six stories of the building. 

Highlights of the new building included 35 classrooms, 10 laboratories, a multimedia and an animation studio, a bookstore, and a 225-seat basement auditorium. Space is at such a premium that until the college reaches its projected 7,500-student maximum capacity, expected sometime around 2016, the college plans to rent out some of its rooms to outside agencies and organizations. The meeting was attended by trustees Gonzalez Yuen, Cy Gulassa, Bill Withrow, and Marcie Hodge. A representative of Swinerton Management & Consulting, the project managers, was also there. 

The district commitment to build Vista’s new building came out of a 1998 court settlement between Berkeley residents and the Peralta District, after Berkeley residents moved to separate Vista from the district and the district sued to keep it in. Walters called the struggle “10 years of angst” and described the new campus as a “miracle building” that many new campus supporters dubbed “the not-in-my-lifetime” building because they never thought it would be built. 

Ikharo said that construction became so contentious at one point that “police had to be called to settle disputes between the district and the general contractor.” SJ Amoroso Construction Company of Redwood Shores is the Vista general contractor. 

The new building, currently under construction and expected to be completed in the spring of 2006, will be a far cry from Vista’s present campus, which has narrow hallways that resemble coal mine tunnels, and classroom walls so thin and porous that students can stand outside the closed doors and take notes on the lectures within.  

But at the end of the presentation, after trustees praised Vista, Peralta, and Ratcliff officials for the work so far done, Trustee Gulassa told President Walters and Peralta General Services Director Ikharo that this wouldn’t stop continued close oversight of the building project by the trustee board. 

“I agree with others about the profusion of thanks that are appropriate, but that won’t stop the board from asking tough questions,” Gulassa said. “It’s our fiduciary responsibility. You’re forewarned.” 

In recent months, Peralta trustees have questioned several change orders at the Vista construction project, leading to the passage of a new board policy earlier this year that gives trustees more oversight over alterations to construction contracts. 

At Thursday’s meeting, Ikharo said that a little over half a million dollars has been spent for various changes to the Vista project plan. The “change orders,” as they are called, accounted for 1.26 percent of the total $65 million price tag. “We don’t expect to get anywhere near 5 percent,” Ikharo said. 

Walters said she expects to present trustees with a package of new requested change orders within the next few weeks, including several to change classroom configurations. Walters blamed the need for those changes on former Peralta chief operating officer Charles A. Taylor, who she said “cut off communications between Vista and Ratcliff in November of 2003. We knew back then that these changes were needed but for whatever reason, Charles Taylor told Vista representatives they couldn’t talk to the architects.” 

Walters said she hopes to have the movers come in the day after graduation in May 2006 to transfer the school to the new building. Walters said that may delay the college’s 2006 summer session for a month or so, “but we don’t want to give the summer session up entirely.” 

Walters and Ikharo said a decision on the exact moving timetable would be made later this year, after construction gets closer to completion.