After breaking ground in June, crews are completing final preparations to lay the cement pad for the new healthcare education building at Tillamook Bay Community College in the coming weeks.
Jason Lawrence, Tillamook Bay Community College's (TBCC) Director of Facilities and Safety, said that the progress meant that the $23.8-million project is on track for a fall 2025 opening.
The new 28,000-square-foot facility will serve as home to TBCC's recently introduced nursing program as well as a host of other spaces that will expand the college's offerings.
A designated EMT lab will allow TBCC to host emergency technician classes, which in recent years have been held at the Rockaway Beach Fire Department. A dedicated ambulance simulator as well as two decommissioned vehicles donated by Adventist Health will give students an opportunity for hands-on learning and the lab will be equipped so that students or teachers can attend class virtually.
An x-ray room will also be included in the new building, with equipment donated by Adventist, and allow students to train to become limited x-ray technicians, a less-involved accreditation process than that for radiation technologists.
TBCC President Paul Jarrell said that he hopes the facility expansion might also allow for the revival of the college's paramedicine program in the future.
Those healthcare education facilities will be located on the building's first floor, along with a large event center that will be capable of hosting up to 400 people or being subdivided into three smaller rooms. The event center will front a plaza that is being built between the new building and the college's existing building, with three large sets of doors allowing for an easy indoor-outdoor flow when the weather is suitable.
Lawrence said that the project was designed including the plaza to help create a sense of campus for the college. Lawrence said that the new plaza will feature artwork, places to sit and meet, and a small pavilion with a solar roof.
The healthcare building's second floor will be home to two flexible classrooms as well as a new office suite for the college's administrative team. Jarrell said that the college's offerings and staff size have increased significantly in the past five years, leading to crowding in the current building. The move will give the college's administrative team more room and free up the office space they currently use to expand TBCC's student services.
A new parking lot will also be added to the south of the healthcare education building as part of the project and expand TBCC's parking capacity from just under 100 spots to just under 200, while adding four electric vehicle charging points with the capacity to expand to 40 in the future. The college's main entrance will also shift to Brookfield Avenue due to the new layout.
So far, crews led by Kirby Nagelhout Construction Company have sunk 149 pilings to a depth of more than 30 feet to stabilize the building's foundation, installed footing and stem walls and are in the final stages of laying electrical and plumbing groundwork. Extensive wastewater management work has also been done, with a retaining tank installed beneath the new plaza.
Lawrence said that the crews will pour the building's concrete slab sometime late in November and following the completion of that process, the project will begin to go vertical. Crews will begin framing using panels assembled offsite, which will allow the process to be completed in six to eight weeks, according to Lawrence. After framing is complete, the building's roof will be installed sometime in early March.
Lawrence said that progress so far was on track with the project's timeline and keeping the building on pace for completion in October or November of 2025. Jarrell said that would allow classes to begin in the new facility in January 2026.