News Release

CONTACT: Della Elliott, Public Information, (619) 644-7690, della.elliott@gcccd.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                        January 19, 2006

Grossmont College gets ‘face-lift’
with revamped entrance road

EL CAJON -- Students are in for a pleasant surprise when they return Monday for the start of the spring semester.

After months of negotiating bumpy detours and orange traffic cones that snaked this way and that, they’ll be greeted by an inviting new entrance described this week at the official opening as an “extreme makeover.”

“It is not only safer, but it’s much more collegiate-looking,” Farrah Gross, president of Associated Students of Grossmont College, said at Wednesday’s ribbon-breaking ceremony marking the completion of the college’s new entrance, a $3 million project that widened lanes, and added two traffic signals and a new stretch of road between Highwood Drive and State Route 125 at the south end of the campus.

“It was a little weedy, a little old-looking before, but now, it’s had an extreme makeover and a wonderful face-lift,” Gross said about the campus entranceway.

Chancellor Omero Suarez was one of a half-dozen speakers to take the podium before joining a small procession of electric carts that drove through a ceremonial ribbon to mark the entrance road’s official opening.

“The underlying issue was safety,” he said about the project, started last summer and funded by a near-even split of state funds and monies from Prop. R, a construction bond measure strongly backed by East County voters to improve both Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges. “We now have safer access to the college and better traffic flow, and we’re able to have very good relations with our neighbors because of the improvements that were a long time in coming.”

Dr. Dean Colli, the college’s acting president, said the project’s official name is the “Life Safety Road” because one of its main purposes is to provide improved access to emergency vehicles.

“I suspect that our neighbors, students and others have coined other descriptions to express their feelings about the traffic congestion we have endured for so long,” he said. “When we include the construction of Interstate 125, our entrance and road projects have been a 10-year cooperative endeavor with our community and many public agencies.”

Governing Board President Deanna Weeks said the entrance road improvements represent a joint effort on the part of the college, the district, the cities of El Cajon and San Diego, and community groups including the San Carlos Area Council and Navajo Planners. Also key contributors to the effort were the state Department of Transportion (Caltrans), and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), which provided a critical 3.5-acre parcel of land to the college district at no cost that made the road expansion possible.

“It was a cohesive partnership, through and through,” Weeks said. “The willingness of all parties to work together was key to making the project a reality.”

Ernest Ewin, chairman of the Prop. R Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, called the road project a “great improvement” that was completed under budget. A college alumnus and president of the student body in the mid ‘60s, Ewin said students familiar with the old college entrance will appreciate the improvement every day they drive onto campus.

“This is a win-win, not only for the college but the community as well,” he said, referring to the improved access to SR125 from Highwood Drive and the more direct access to the college from the freeway.

Ewin added that the improved college entrance is a promising precursor to other Prop. R projects on line at Grossmont College.

“Now that the front of the college has seen such great improvement, the rest of the college will follow.”

Projects currently under construction at Grossmont include a new science lab facility, and a two-building digital arts and sculpture complex, all funded by a mix of state funds and Prop. R monies.

Grossmont College is located at 8800 Grossmont College Drive in El Cajon. For more information about Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges, go to www.gcccd.edu.

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