At its regular meeting Wednesday night, the College of the Canyons Board of Trustees approved $35 million for modernization projects, using a second wave of Measure M bond money.

“This is the step we have to take to move forward and issue more of our Measure M money,” explained Eric Harnish, Assistant to Chancellor Dianne Van Hook. Voters approved Measure M in 2006, which provides up to $160 million in local bond money for college construction projects.

“This is actually the second time we’ve issued bond money,” Harnish continued. “We spent some of the money on expanding Mentry Hall, which serves as a media center and houses our arts, graphic and multimedia design, art gallery and photo departments.”

The first draw on the funds also supported construction on the West Wing of the University Center, expansion of the library that is currently underway on the Valencia campus as well as three projects on the Canyon Country campus, including the Applied Technology building, a new parking lot and Quad Six, which provides new classrooms and office space.

The new money will help provide scheduled maintenance and site upgrades, including the replacement of the Student Services/Administration building, which will be torn down and replaced with a two-story structure.

”It will have the same footprint, but it will allow us to bring student functions that are scattered around the campus under one roof, provide more convenience to students and improve the levels of service.

“There are also secondary effects,” Harnish continued. “As we’re moving things around (departments) and build the new Administration building, that will create space vacancies in other departments, so we’ll go back and renovate, upgrade and convert them to new uses.”