CASTROVILLE—Two large signs along Merritt Street just east of Highway 1 in Castroville now mark the site where, by spring of 2022, a new education and outreach center for Hartnell College will serve students throughout North Monterey County.
The signs, installed Dec. 5, are also a tangible symbol of accomplishment for Manuel Osorio, Area 1 trustee for the Hartnell Community College District, who has advocated for the college to establish a North County center since his election in 2015.
“Before I became a board member for Hartnell, I was a member of the North Monterey County Unified School District board, and I saw that a lot of our students were not moving on to Hartnell,” Osorio said. “But now that we’re opening this building, our North County students will have more opportunity to take advantage of what Hartnell has to provide—and Hartnell has a lot to provide.”
Construction on the 13,750-square-foot North Monterey County Education Center at 10241 Tembladero St. is expected to start in summer 2020, following design approval by the Division of the State Architect. The single-story building will have three classrooms, wet and dry science laboratories and a community room.
The project is a $10.56 million design-build project between contractor Dilbeck & Sons Inc. and In Studio Architecture (ISA), both of Salinas.
Funding will come from Measure T, a $167 million bond measure approved in 2016 by Hartnell district voters. The center in Castroville will be the fifth Measure T project to begin construction since November, when Hartnell broke ground on a similar center in Soledad.
In addition, the college is doubling the size of its King City Education Center, redoing landscaping in the open quad on its main campus in Salinas and modernizing two classroom buildings there.
Earlier this month, Hartnell broke ground on a 24,000-square-foot Center for Nursing & Health Sciences, also on the main campus, that will be named for the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, which donated $3 million to support the growth of Hartnell’s healthcare programs.
The exact mix of academic offerings at the new education center in Castroville, as well as at the Soledad center and the expanded center in King City, is still being determined, but it likely will be a combination of general education courses and one or more areas of career emphasis, with the prospect for students to complete an associate degree and other credentials without traveling to Hartnell’s two campuses in Salinas, according to a press release for the college.
The college has held a series of community meetings to gather input for its planning for the new facilities, including one held on Aug. 29 at Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville.
Several local leaders gathered at the site of the new center in Castroville on Dec. 5 to unveil the two billboard signs. Among them were Monterey County District 2 Supervisor John Phillips, Hartnell Superintendent-President Patricia Hsieh and two administrators from the North Monterey County Unified School District: Liann Reyes, assistant superintendent for business services, and Emily Tsai Brownfield, director of 21st-century learning and innovation.
“Hartnell has been an amazing partner and asset,” Reyes said, “but there aren’t a lot of opportunities in this end of the county for our students and our kids. So to have a facility available for them outside of high school where they can realize, ‘I can do this. I belong. I can accomplish this,’ that’s so important for our community.
“I think our district is really going to benefit and be blessed by this. Our students are great kids, and they deserve the same opportunities.”
