Featured Project:
Mesa College
Project Profile: Student Services Center

The Student Services Center is a new $55.7 million, 85,000 gross square foot building at Mesa College that will house admissions, financial aid, evaluations and testing, counseling, student government, disabled student services, information and outreach, classrooms, conference areas and a café. The project also includes a new express elevator between the lower parking lot and the upper campus.

Each department is arranged around an open four-level atrium, where students can interact with each other and staff in a single location, and each floor opens onto a series of outdoor terraces that move up the hillside slopes adjacent to the project. The building is connected to its location on campus by the terraces, creating a vibrant new north entryway to the campus.

The building is designed to meet LEED Silver certification standards with projected energy savings 35 percent better than state requirements. Water-efficient plumbing, irrigation and landscape will result in a water savings of 40 percent on the building use and 50 percent on landscaping.

The project uses materials and finishes that include recycled content; attention to indoor air quality and the use of natural daylight are also both considerations that were taken into the project’s master plan. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in spring 2010 with a target completion date in fall 2011.