Calif. Community College Breaks Ground on STEM Education Facility

The Mt. San Jacinto Community College District recently broke ground on a new STEM Education building for its San Jacinto Campus in San Jacinto, Calif. The facility is set to stand three stories and cover 57,374 square feet, and it’s scheduled for completion by fall 2023. The college is partnering with builders C. W. Driver Companies and design firm LPA Architects on the project, which is estimated to cost about $37 million, according to a news release.

The new building will centralize the campus’ expanding STEM departments—including biology, physical science and math—which are currently spread across several buildings across multiple campuses. It’s set to include science labs and lecture rooms, general classrooms, labs for math and general studies, and faculty offices.

MSJCC STEM Technology Building
Photo Credit: LPA Architects

“Our goal at MSJC is to provide our students with the best possible education to prepare them for their future endeavors,” said Todd Franco, Dean of Facilities Planning, District Construction & Support Services at Mt. San Jacinto Community College. “This new centralized hub for our math and science departments will allow our teams to collaborate in a permanent space that will contribute greatly to the STEM education and research at MSJC.”

C .W. Driver previously completed construction of the Mt. San Jacinto College Temecula Valley Campus in 2021. MSJC encompasses 116 community colleges across California and serves students within a 1,700-square-mile range from the San Gorgonio Pass to Temecula.

“C.W. Driver Companies is proud to continue our partnership with Mt. San Jacinto College to provide their students with a best-in-class campus,” said David Amundson, project executive at C.W. Driver Companies. “It was an honor to be able to leverage our decades of experience in higher education to provide students and faculty with a centralized, permanent facility to further their research and learning.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Spaces4Learning Announces 2026 Product Award Winners

    Spaces4Learning has just announced the winners of the 2026 Product Awards! The award program spotlights outstanding product development achievements of manufacturers and suppliers whose products or services are considered to be particularly noteworthy in their ability to enhance K–12 and higher-education learning environments.

  • Minnesota District Converts Middle School into Community Hub

    White Bear Lake Area Schools in White Bear Lake, Minn., recently announced the end of a major renovation project that converted a former middle school into a new centralized district and community hub, according to a news release.

  • Fargo, N.D., Starts Construction on Consolidated Elementary School

    Fargo Public Schools in Fargo, N.D., recently announced the beginning of construction on a new elementary school, according to a news release. The district partnered with ICON Architectural Group and Kraus-Anderson Construction on the new Horace Mann Elementary School.