Heating, air conditioning, pipes and other infrastructure need to be fixed at Odessa College, according to an analysis from JSA Architects presented at a Board of Trustees work session Wednesday.
Cruz Castillo of JSA Architects and OC Vice President of Administrative Services Ken Zartner went through the list of what needs upgrading and replacing at a variety of buildings around campus.
Although Vision 2015 was complete, they didn’t get to everything, Castillo said. No costs or methods of getting revenue for future projects were presented, but it was informational to let the board know what’s coming up and what some possible recommendations might be.
“Over the past couple of years, you all have seen us go through property committees and come back to the board on several occasions (about) all of the infrastructure needs that we continue to have and things that continue to fail across the campus,” Zartner said.
In December, their steam system failed in the Electronics Technology Building and they had no heat for a couple of weeks.
“Last summer all the heat cooling problems that we had which resulted in the board supporting the purchase of a $400,000 chiller that we can move module and put around the campus whenever we need (to) … We’re a tale of two campuses — a very beautiful new campus with new facilities and new buildings and a very old campus that has a lot of needs and a lot of infrastructure concerns,” Zartner said.
“We have pipes crumbling underneath us,” he added.
There was a pipe collapse in the library that knocked out the restrooms; an underground sewage pipe at Wilkerson Hall knocked that building out of service for a significant amount of time; the infrastructure beneath the Jack Rodgers Fine Arts building crumbled and they had to repair that, as well as the heating and cooling systems.
Additionally, the pool at the Sports Center was out for almost two years as they tried to make needed repairs.
“About a month ago in the women’s locker room out of nowhere we had an overhead pipe that just burst on our national championship contending team in their locker room in the middle of their season. They have no locker room anymore because this pipe burst and flooded out their entire facility. We just never know when it’s going to happen. We never know what’s going to happen over the weekend or at night,” Zartner said.
As a result, Zartner said they have tried to figure out how to address those needs, the costs associated with those needs and how do they continue to move the college forward and complete Vision 2030.
Castillo talked about replacing the fine arts building, sports center and student housing to name a few. He added that the college can gain greater efficiency if the buildings are new.
He also addressed the need for more parking.
On the the downtown community center, Castillo said they used 65-70 percent of that property to build a community center, which has been “fantastic.”
“We’ve been down there on the First Friday. You’ve seen how that’s being utilized. I’m sure there will be a lot more activity. The southern portion of that property, we left enough space to be able to have a three-story academic building there,” Castillo said.
