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Serafin Fernandez, Gavilan College’s Director of Capital Projects, led a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the morning of Nov. 13, celebrating the opening of its new Hollister campus. The new building will open for classes in January 2025.
Fernandez said he’s proud of the time and work that it took to get the first phase of the campus built.
“It’s really a surreal feeling,” Fernandez said. “Knowing the history of what it took the college to actually get the project to be a reality, I feel very proud that we’re here.”
The new campus has been a long time in the making. Gavilan was originally founded in 1919 in Hollister as an extension of San Benito High School. The campus moved to Gilroy in 1966 after a vote to combine the San Benito and Santa Clara County community college districts.
Elvira Zaragoza Robinson served on the Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee for the Hollister campus project, and on Gavilan’s Board of Trustees between 1990 and 2010. Robinson has watched the project across multiple stages of development.
“It was like 22 years ago that we were already beginning to look at sites,” Robinson said. “So it’s been in the minds of people, I think, ever since the campus moved to Gilroy.”
In 2004, San Benito County voters approved Bond Measure E, which had a provision for a Hollister extension for Gavilan. The extension would later be hosted on the first floor of the Briggs building in downtown Hollister.
Lois Locci (a BenitoLink founding board member) was a Gavlian board member between 2014 and 2018. She says voters who approved Measure E were later disappointed.
“San Benito County residents felt particularly miffed because they had been sold the idea that there would be a campus.” Locci said. “The public believes that it means that there is football, swimming, a huge library, laboratories. Campus implies this in our language.”
When Locci was elected to the board, she felt it was her duty to represent the interests of San Benito County. She worked with other like-minded members to push for a more substantial Gavilan presence in the county.
“It was true that the language of the bond measure and the language of the promotional material clearly did lead people to believe that they would have a campus,” Locci said. “So of course that was the reason I and others wanted to do another round to get the job really done for San Benito County.”
Kent Child was one of those like-minded board members. He served on the board between 2005 and 2018, and believes in the development of higher education opportunities in rural areas.
“My roots were for somebody that doesn’t have the money and all to be able to work your way through college and all the way through graduate degrees without owing anybody a nickel or dime, and that’s what I did,” Child said. “I wanted to make sure that as much as possible could exist in the 21st Century here at San Benito college.”
Past board members said that one of the biggest challenges for the development of the campus was finding land to build on. California regulations put limitations on the kinds of land community colleges can have a full-service campus on. Child said that Gavilan was originally looking for areas in downtown Hollister.
“Internally at the college we had a lot of discussions,” Child said, “and ultimately the board in collaboration with the administration made a decision that we wanted to plan for the future. If we limited ourselves to just the downtown area … it could never expand.”
After years of looking for sites, a developer eventually approached Child about a potential site. It met the state’s requirements for a full-service community college campus. It also didn’t face the seismic challenges other potential sites did.
Voters approved Measure X, a bond measure with money allocated for the construction of the campus, in 2017. The measure provided funding for the first phase of development at the new site, including a building with multiple classrooms, administrative offices, a community room, and a cafe.
When Robinson served on the Bond Oversight committee, she observed the last few years of development of the project. She said she’s impressed with the organization of all involved.
“Every single aspect of all the groups are so well-organized,” Robinson said, “and how they could draw the plans and make this come to fruition is absolutely amazing. And right on budget. It’s absolutely incredible.”
At the ribbon cutting ceremony, Associated Students of Gavilan College President Gisel Villarreal was one of the speakers. Villarreal helped organize student input into the project. She is transferring to California State University, East Bay, after the fall semester. She said the ceremony was bittersweet for her because her siblings will be able to use the campus after she transfers.
“I had that small little building, and now they have this big, beautiful campus,” Villarreal said.
Robinson echoed Villarreal’s admiration of the new campus after the ribbon cutting.
“It was absolutely exhilarating to be able to see what all our efforts came to be,” Robinson said. “The campus is just magnificent.”
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