City College’s new $37.5 million Lillard Hall is almost ready for students.

In April 2019, City College commissioned HGA Sacramento to design a modernization project for Lillard Hall. As part of that, the old building will be demolished and a new one is being built, according to Debbie Turner, City College’s interim operations supervisor. 

With construction nearly complete, the college aims to have the building ready for students starting next semester in spring 2023. 

While the new Lillard Hall will be a modernized version of the old building, it will still stay architecturally consistent with other buildings on campus and in the Los Rios Community College District. This includes the classic brick walls and clay tile mansard roofs. 

According to a summary of the project on HGA’s website, City College and HGA Sacramento hope to provide students with a modern space that helps improve their educational opportunities. The challenge that came with that was mixing the traditional aspects with new technologically advanced features. 

There was also the challenge of providing a modern learning space that created a solid working environment while also meeting the standard requirements of a science building. HGA Sacramento was able to overcome those hurdles during the design process. 

Although the designs for the new Lillard Hall were completed in 2015, construction didn’t begin until spring of 2020. Turner says the 54,574 square-foot, three-story building will include six  lecture spaces, 15 office spaces, three workspaces, a tutoring space and 12 lab spaces for science classes. It will be built adjacent to the original Lillard Hall. 

Other features of the new building are large outdoor spaces for students to meet and continue their learning experience when they’re not inside the building. 

The original Lillard Hall was built in the 1960s and is one of the oldest buildings on campus. As the years went by, the building has begun to decay. Rose Giordano, the interim dean of the Science and Allied Health Division, says, “It definitely has completed the needs for the sciences for a long time.” 

Despite the building still being in relatively good condition, Giordano says, “It was time for the sciences to have modernization.”

According to Giordano, the building will house lecture classes for many science programs including nutrition, chemistry, biology, physics and astronomy. However, biology and chemistry  are the only subjects that will host labsthere. 

According to HGA Sacramento, City College’s main goal for the new building is to be a state-of-the-art facility with a net-zero energy, which means that the building will use as little energy as possible by mainly relying on clean renewable sources of energy. This helps reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Giordano adds that construction is technically completed. Currently, they are testing out the building’s heating and plumbing, as well as fixing any lingering issues. Starting around mid-November, teachers may begin slowly moving their items over to the new building and settling in. 

Once the building is officially complete then phase two of the project will begin; the original Lillard Hall and the temporary 11 classrooms will be demolished. After demolition has concluded , construction of a new gazebo in the location of the old Lillard Hall will begin. 

For those at City College who have played a role in this modernization project, to see it come to fruition is fulfilling. “I’ve been fortunate to really see the end result of it,” Giordano said. “So the planning has gone on for five to 10 years  — the talking about it. And now I actually get to see the fun part.”