(Save the date:  RealShare Los Angeles comes to the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, CA, on March 27.)

MONTEREY PARK, CA-As part of the campus' ongoing initiative to build state-of-the-art, sustainable structures, East Los Angeles College here is adding a new Student Success and Retention Center. Construction has begun on the $55-million, 136,000-square-foot complex that will consolidate various once-dispersed departments to create learning environments for the diverse student body.

Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers, the project is slated for completion in late 2014. It is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and has a future plan for Net Zero Energy, a design principal where buildings produce as much energy on-site as they consume.

Part of a design-build competition, the five-story structure lies on a dense urban campus and will consolidate nine departments into flexible learning environments including classrooms, offices, common areas and success center labs such as languages, reading and writing. Adaptable classrooms allow rearrangement of furniture configurations for different learning options, thus encouraging collaborative student-faculty interaction.

According to James Matson, HGA's principal-in-charge, “Creating flexible spaces that easily reconfigure for multiple uses and teaching modalities is an important component of the design, as needs and programs will evolve throughout the years. Our design takes full advantage of the natural environment and will create a building that will not only encourage collaborative student-faculty interaction, but also set a benchmark for sustainability.”

As GlobeSt.com previously reported, in May 2012 construction began on Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, a $284 million replacement hospital designed by HGA. The new facility will replace the current SMCSR on Chanate Rd., located just north of San Francisco, which was originally built in 1938. The 182,300-square-foot center is expected to open in October 2014.