Lot 1 goes green

With further construction comes car port solar panels

Melody Soto / Roundup

Rentable fences guarding construction areas are visible almost everywhere at Pierce.

In the next week, more fences are likely to be present on campus with construction now active in Parking Lot 1 since Friday and beginning in Parking Lot 8 very soon.

Jim Allison is an employee of Swinerton, a construction company responsible for most of the renovations on campus, and serves as the project manager in charge of both lots.

Work on Lot 1 began Friday, leaving the lot physically closed on Monday.

“We are installing two rows of photovoltaic arrays like the ones in Parking Lot 6,” Allison said.

Although construction on Lot 8 was scheduled to commence Monday, the date has been postponed.

Paul Nieman, the vicepresident of Administrative Services and director of plant facilities, said it was likely that construction on Parking Lot 8 would start next week.

Maura Salinas, 18, uses Parking Lot 8 frequently and finds its future construction inconvenient.

“It sucks; in the mornings when I have class, it’s hard to find a space in Parking Lot 7,” said Salinas. “I park [in Parking Lot 8], because nobody parks here.”

Emric Andrade, 20, is already unsatisfied with the way the present construction layout forces students to circle around campus in order to get to the opposite side, and he thinks that more construction could really impact students.

“Students have a greater chance of being late to class because of a lack of parking; this could even affect someone’s grades,” said Andrade.

According to Nieman, Pierce College is concerned with trying to maintain safe paths of travel for students while changes continue on campus. He added that maps are available to those who require them and questions regarding present activities are being answered as well.

According to Allison, work on both lots is scheduled to go on until mid August.

“There will be between 15 to 20 people working on both lots,” Allison said. Gabriela Moctezuma, 17, finds it difficult to study on campus.

“It’s noisy everywhere you go,” Moctezuma said.

Even though Moctezuma has been affected by the noisy atmosphere on campus, she believes that it is worth going through some disturbances because in the future students will benefit from the new facilities.

“There’s going to be new classrooms and buildings that I will get to use,” Moctezuma said.