State Supplement sponsored by:
CALIFORNIA STATE EDITION A Supplement to: SHIP WITHIN 48 HOURS SAME DAY PARTS AVAILABILITY
®
February 22 2026 Vol. VII • No 4
24 HOUR TECHNICAL SUPPORT BACKED BY AN 85 YEAR BUSINESS Thousands in Service!
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.”
Your California Connection – Sharon Swanson – 1-760-518-4336 – sswanson@cegltd.com
Affordable Price. Premium Service.
CALL 800-367-4937 *On approved credit • Financing Available
McCarthy Builds Student Services Hub for San Bernardino Valley By Chuck MacDonald CEG CORRESPONDENT
In many counties across America, the local junior college provides an important step into adulthood. This is true for San Bernardino Valley College (SBVC). This year, the school and its 17,000 students are celebrating its 100th anniversary and SBVC has begun construction on a Student Services building that will serve as the school’s front door. Located along busy Mt. Vernon Road in San Bernardino, the site was formerly a liberal arts building. The college hired local builders McCarthy Building Cos. to demolish the old building and build the new structure. The new three-story building will house counseling The McCarthy team used multiple excavators to demolish the old building to make room for the new Student Services building.
The new building is located on Mt. Vernon Avenue in San Bernardino. It will serve as a new “front door” for the junior college.
offices, health and wellness services, enrollment activities, tutoring and collaboration spaces and a veteran’s center. The project’s cost is approximately $100 million. McCarthy has completed the demolition and grading of the site and laid the foundation for the new building. Of course, the building is designed in accordance with the state’s seismic requirements. The construction team is using geopiers to provide extra stability for the foundation. This approach, also called rammed aggregate pier technology, uses rammed energy to densely compact stone and gravel to increase the strength of the surrounding soils. This process enables the soils to bear greater weight and maintain firmness. The construction team used some 500 geopiers for the building. Planners expect to top out the concrete frame building in March, with the building ready for students by the spring of 2027. Sarah Carr, vice president, project executive of McCarthy, is overseeing the project. She expects to have 75-100 workers on the job each day, with 50 percent of the workers hired locally. The team is pouring the second elevated deck and using a tower crane, forklifts and various other lifts to deliver construction materials to the site. “The college is focused on sustainability, and we are targeting LEED Platinum for our environmental focus,” Carr said. “We will be installing solar panels on the roof as part of that effort.” The exterior finish is a combination of stucco, fiber cement, vinyl/PVC, brick, metal panels and glass. A combination of polished concrete with an epoxy coating ceramic and carpet tiles will cover the interior flooring. Safety is an important part of the planning and execution for the job. see JUCO page 6