Posted August 13, 2004.

High Costs Delay New Cal State Library

California State University Channel Islands in Ventura County will have to wait another two years for its new library, which was originally scheduled for a fall 2003 groundbreaking. CSUCI President Richard Rush said that bids from contractors were much higher than planned, perhaps because of increased materials and labor costs fueled by a statewide construction boom, the Los Angeles Times reported August 13. “We got caught in the middle of those price increases,” he said.

University officials reopened the bidding process August 12 with a cost cap of $44 million and hope to have a successful bidder by December. Construction of the John Spoor Broome Library—designed by London-based architect Norman Foster—would begin early in 2005 and be completed in 2007. Foster's plans call for a two-story building with a glass façade that merges with the original Spanish-style design of CSU's newest campus, which welcomed its first class of freshmen in 2003 and was the site of the Camarillo State Hospital from 1936 to 1997.

The library will be named after the Oxnard rancher who donated $5 million to CSUCI in 1999 for a new facility.

Posted August 13, 2004.