Despite several years of concerns, the new 52-million-dollar Learning Resource Center (LRC) remains bridgeless, deterring access for a variety of students and pedestrians.
The college has been working with the city to plan a pedestrian bridge since the conception of the LRC project, so there is in fact light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Beyond serving the college’s best interest, the bridge will benefit the city of Everett and its citizens. In 2019 the cost of the bridge was estimated at $15,000,000, but to this point the city has received only $12,900,000 in state funding. This gap is currently unresolved, but the college and the city have worked together to close it, and will continue to do so.
“What we have done on the college side is we have formed a committee of students, faculty and staff who have met with the city to talk about those concerns. We met with city traffic engineers, and those city traffic engineers helped us come up with a really good list of things that we can collaborate on to understand things like doing a speed study and what is the speed of drivers going through that Broadway corridor,” Vice President of Campus Operations, Erica Dias said. “We also want to look at the walk signal and the length that someone has to get across the street.”
“Future plans for connecting the two sides of North Broadway have implications for transit, including city and regional bus service, which makes it appropriate for the city to run the process,” Director of Public Relations, Jenny Marin said.
This plan is included in the 2023-2028 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program. With the bridge’s development being up to six years away, the city and college are working together to address the safety concerns from staff and students.
The school also plans to replace Baker Hall and move its location alongside the LRC. This 50,000 gross square feet (gsf) project was originally estimated to cost $29,086,000 in 2017, but has since been funded by state Legislature to the tune of $38,200,000. Construction is set to begin in the 2024 Fall Quarter.
“The building will be constructed in a single phase, which will require demolition of Baker Hall prior to the start of construction. Since we lack surge space, EvCC will provide temporary classrooms – either through leased space or portable structures – sufficient to accommodate those classes currently housed in Baker Hall,” according to the project report for the new building.
“It will contain sixteen primary instructional classrooms, two Basic Skills labs and instructional support spaces, ranging from classroom break-out spaces to collaboration rooms to informal lounges. An auditorium, convertible for use as a black-box theater will serve multiple roles, from instructional lab to instructional support to a campus event space.”
The school has also submitted a request to the state to build The Student & Family Success Center, a 28,000 gsf area, with aspirations to start construction in August 2025.
“The concept for the proposed two-story building would be sort of a one stop shop for student parents to have resources like food, clothing, study spaces for families, academic support, all of those types of things in a place that is accessible from Broadway in one building,” said Dias.
Implementing a new pedestrian bridge will not only add another accessibility tool for pedestrians and students, but will add another chapter to the rapid expansion of both the city of Everett and the school.
