Five proposed Community Colleges of Spokane building projects, with a combined value of about $89 million, have made a statewide short list of projects competing for future state funding.


Making the list, issued in February by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC), doesnt guarantee that the projects will be built, but is an encouraging first step, says Scott Morgan, chief operations officer at the Spokane college district.


Its really early in the process, but things look good, says Morgan.


The five CCS projects were among 26 that made the short list, out of 61 proposals submitted to the SBCTC by the states 34 community and technical colleges. Those 26 projects now will advance to the next round of project culling, which will be done by the Washington Association of Community and Technical Colleges (WACTC). That organizations recommendations will go to the state Office of Financial Management for possible inclusion in the governors proposed capital budget for the 2007-2009 biennium. Ultimately, the Legislature will decide which projects are funded.


We have a really good chance of getting funded, says Butch Slaughter, district facilities project manager for CCS.


Morgan says the WACTC has a history of adopting recommendations made to it by the SBCTC, which compiles its short list after hearing from the presidents of community and technical colleges throughout the state.


The WACTC bases its decisions on information supplied by the SBCTC, its own staff, and a 10-person capital budget task force, says Morgan.


Hopefully, theyre all in sync, he says.


CCS includes Spokane Falls Community College, Spokane Community College, and the Institute for Extended Learning, the latter of which serves six counties and has no single formal campus, Morgan says.


Even in the best-case scenario, the earliest that most of the money for any of the five projects could come to CCS is 2009, says Morgan. An exception to that is a proposed $1.9 million remodel of the building in northwest Spokane that currently houses the Washington State University Intercollegiate College of Nursing.


That structure, located at 2917 W. Fort George Wright Drive and formally known as the Magnuson Building, will be vacated by the nursing education center when the new nursing school building on the Riverpoint Higher Education Park is completed in 2008.


WSU has agreed to transfer ownership of the building to CCS, says Morgan. CCS hopes to get federal money to finance half of the cost of the remodeling and secure a state match for the second $950,000, he says.


He says the building then would be used by all three of its institutions to teach health-industry classes such as physical therapy and vision care, but not nursing. Spokane Falls Community College is located nearby.


The largest proposed CCS project is a $32.9 million technical education building that would be built on the Spokane Community College campus in East Spokane to replace the 43,000-square-foot west wing of SCCs 278,000-square-foot Main Building. That wing was constructed in 1956 and was the first of five phases that completed the venerable structure. The west wing would be torn down, and SCC eventually would like to construct another building on that site, Morgan says.


The proposed technical education building that made the short list would be two stories tall and would include about 70,000 square feet of floor space. It would be built elsewhere on the east side of the campus, says Morgan.


Another proposed project on the list is a $29.4 million classroom building on the SFCC campus. That building would replace the schools chemistry and life-sciences building and likely would be a three-story building with about 70,000 square feet of floor space, Morgan says.


The fourth project calls for spending about $10.1 million to renovate the old science building at SCC, where a new, 65,000-square-foot science building currently is under construction. The old building, which is one-story and has 30,000 square feet of floor space, would house the schools radiology, biomedical equipment, and physical education programs after its renovated.


The fifth project on the list would be on the SFCC campus, and would include a $13.9 million renovation and expansion of the music and performing arts building, which is a one-story structure with about 26,000 square feet of floor space. Plans are to add a second story to that structure, giving it about 47,500 square feet of floor space, says Morgan.


The only two projects submitted by CCS but not making the short list were proposals to construct new student services-administration buildings at the entrances of both SCC and SFCC, he says. At an estimated cost of about $25 million each, those buildings each would have had about 60,000 square feet of floor space, he says.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.