CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune The second of four walls of Palomar College's planetarium came down July 1.

By mid-August, all traces of the old science complex, built in the 1960s, and the S building, built in 1956, will be gone. Two new academic buildings are scheduled to open on the sites in late 2009 or early 2010.

Candy Francis, dean of mathematics and natural and health sciences, said she felt unexpected nostalgia while watching the demolition this month. Francis had taught in the science building for 35 years.

“It was kind of odd seeing my old file cabinet and desk sitting in a pile of rubble,” Francis said. “I thought about all the students coming through the years and wondering how they are and what they're doing.”

The demolition and cleanup process should be finished by mid-August, and most of the debris will be recycled, said Kelley Hudson-MacIsaac, Palomar's manager of facilities planning.

PALOMAR COLLEGE EXPANSION In 2006, voters approved Proposition M, a $694 million bond measure to expand and improve the Palomar Community College District's facilities. Property owners will pay $14.72 for every $100,000 in assessed valuation annually for 30 years. All work should be completed around 2022. Demolition has started on the San Marcos campus. A former science wing and a classroom building are being dismantled to make space for two new buildings. About 30 projects are planned for the San Marcos campus, including 13 new buildings, parking lot improvements and technology upgrades. The bond also will pay for two satellite education centers. Land has been purchased in Fallbrook, and the district is searching for a second site.

Tearing down buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s and replacing them with modern buildings will be a common activity at Palomar College during the next 14 years or so. Other buildings will remain but undergo major remodeling.

In 2006, voters approved a $694 million bond measure for expansion and renovation that will allow the Palomar Community College District to accommodate about 48,000 students by 2022. Its attendance boundaries stretch from the Riverside County line south to Poway, east to Borrego Springs and west to Camp Pendleton – an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

By passing the bond, Palomar is eligible to receive about $300 million in state funds, but it must compete for the money, said Bonnie Dowd, Palomar's vice president of finance and administrative services.

Palomar College opened in 1946 with 100 students at what is now Lincoln Middle School in Vista . In 1950, it moved to the 200-acre main San Marcos campus. Enrollment today has surpassed 30,000.

Besides using bond money to upgrade its main campus, the district is also planning two satellite education centers – one in Fallbrook and the other on an undetermined site near Poway.

A new face

The Palomar College campus has been undergoing major changes and relocations for more than a year. Its science programs moved into a modern $30 million natural sciences headquarters in August 2007. It was constructed with state funds, and $5.2 million in bond money was spent to buy equipment.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Palomar College astronomy and science instructor Jim Pesavento watched July 1 as several science buildings were demolished to make way for new construction. Pesavento has taught at Palomar for 33 years.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune A diagram of the human body in former science classroom LS-24 at Palomar College sat on a pile of rubble. The building and adjacent buildings are being torn down.

The old science complex had housed the chemistry, earth sciences and life sciences departments. The college planetarium was located there until July 1, when the building was demolished.

The site will become a three-story academic building for several departments, including business administration, American Indian studies and computer science. Construction of the 100,000-square-foot building, which will resemble the new natural sciences building, should start this summer, Hudson-MacIsaac said. Its cost is estimated at $37 million.

The S building was home to the physics department and the dental-assistant program, which will move temporarily to a portable building until the work is finished on a two-story health sciences building, expected to cost about $10 million. The college's nursing program also will move there.

Final designs of the 25,000-square-foot structure are being reviewed by the state, Hudson-MacIsaac said, and construction should start by the end of the year.

“We're building good functional buildings, but we're not building Taj Mahals,” she said.

Judy Eckhart, the chairwoman of Palomar's nursing education department, said the nursing program is beyond crowded. The department is based in a double-wide wooden trailer in an area of red-trimmed portable classrooms that faculty members have dubbed Redwood City.

The new facility will have more space for lectures, labs and three new simulator patient rooms with interactive mannequins, Eckhart said.

“We put out an excellent nurse and this would just give us a chance to put out more excellent nurses,” she said.

Palomar's 76-seat planetarium was the first in the state at a community college and has had about about 250,000 visitors since it opened in 1965, said Mark Lane, the planetarium's director.

A seamless transition between closing the planetarium and opening a new one was impossible, much to the disappointment of teachers who attended dozens of shows staged each year with their students, Lane said. A new planetarium couldn't be put in the natural sciences building because it's not considered classroom space, he said, and so the state wouldn't fund it.

Bond money will be used to pay for the new planetarium, but it will be about three years before it's completed. The new one will have twice as many seats and superior equipment, Lane said.

More to come

Courtesy of Carrier Johnson Palomar College plans to build a two-story health sciences building at its San Marcos campus. Construction should start by the end of the year.

Courtesy of LPA Architects Construction of a three-story academic building should start this summer. Several departments, including business administration, will be located there.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Astronomy instructor and planetarium director Mark Lane (left), science and astronomy instructor Jim Pesavento and Candy Francis (right), dean of mathematics and natural and health sciences, watched the school's planetarium being razed July 1 to make way for new buildings.

The two buildings under construction are just the beginning of what's in the pipeline.

About 30 projects are scheduled on the San Marcos campus until 2022, including a new central plant for utilities, technology upgrades and parking lot improvements. In all, there will be 13 new buildings and 10 that are significantly remodeled. The new structures will include a library, an industrial technology building, a digital arts and communications building and a child development center.

In 2009, construction is expected to start on the planetarium, a new theater building and the industrial technology building, Hudson-MacIsaac said.

The old library, one of the buildings to be remodeled, will become a hub for student services. The college's iconic dome, which covers a gym, also will be refurbished.

In general, remodeling or replacing a building requires two to three years of planning and getting state approval before construction can start, Hudson-MacIsaac said.

Last year, the community college issued $160 million in bonds. About one-third of that money was used to buy an 83-acre parcel in Fallbrook and pay to open a few buildings on site in 2011. During the coming school year, design work on the site will begin, Hudson-MacIsaac said.

The bonds issued also funded a project proposal for the current library and design work of the new one. A new series of bonds could be sold in 2010.

The college is looking for land for a satellite education center near the district's southern boundary, said Dowd, the vice president of finance, but finding a parcel that is affordable and easily accessible has been difficult.

Hudson-MacIsaac said the district is working hard to keep current construction projects on budget and on schedule.

“We've got students waiting and faculty waiting,” she said.

 Linda Lou: (760) 737-7574; linda.lou@uniontrib.com