April 26, 2017
LOS ALTOS HILLS, Calif. – Alten Construction, a full-service San Francisco Bay Area commercial construction company, has broken ground on a two-story office building for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, which operates Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif., and De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif.
The new $18-million, 24,000-square-foot facility, which was designed by Ratcliff Architects of Emeryville, Calif., will house office space for about 70 district administration employees, including the chancellor of the college district and employees in human resources, business services, purchasing and the district’s charitable foundation. A connected single-story elliptical boardroom will seat up to 215 people and will be used for monthly board of trustees meetings as well as other functions. The facility will be built on a portion of an existing parking lot adjacent to the Foothill College campus.
The exterior of the building will feature a curtain wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, echoing the Silicon Valley style of many technology companies in the area. Inside, glass walls framed by wood paneling will provide accents. Small breakout rooms will be scattered across both floors, allowing staff from different departments to have short meetings with employees from Foothill College and De Anza College. The facility will also include storage for records and equipment and an employee break room. Construction is scheduled for completion in March 2018.
Since November 2013, district administration employees have been based in five temporary portable trailers. At that time, they moved into the trailers to await the renovation of the district administrative office building constructed in the late 1960s, a project also led by Alten Construction and completed in 2015. But before the project was finished, district officials realized the renovated building would be better suited for the college’s educational technology services department. Then plans began for a new building that would work more effectively for the district’s other centralized administrative services.
Since administration employees have been located in temporary trailers for more than three years, Foothill-De Anza Community College District Vice Chancellor of Business Services Kevin McElroy said employees are looking forward to the new facility with great anticipation.
“Getting back under a single roof, into a facility with adequate storage space and convenient meeting spaces, will feel like a real privilege and truly improve both work flow and the natural ‘osmosis’ between staff members,” McElroy said.
Since its founding in 1957, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District has provided workforce, basic skills and university transfer preparation to more than one million students at its two campuses in California’s Silicon Valley. Together Foothill and De Anza colleges currently serve approximately 60,000 students a year and offer more than 200 degree and certificate programs. The community college district annually ranks at or near the top for transferring students to the University of California and California State University systems.
