The Lone Star College System opened LSC-North Harris’s $19.2 million Construction and Skilled Trades Technology Center in the summer, but the opening of LSC-University Park’s Center for Science and Innovation has been delayed after sustaining flooding damage caused by Hurricane Harvey. The $15.4 million Center for Science and Innovation was scheduled to open on Hwy. 249 at the beginning of the 2017 fall semester, but is now slated to open in spring 2018, LSC-UP President Shah Ardalan said. Both buildings are part of LSCS’s $485 million bond package approved in 2014. Ardalan said selling bonds is the most common way for community colleges to fund new buildings. “Our approved budget supports the operational costs of providing education to our community, but it does not fund new buildings,” Ardalan said. Construction of the Center for Science and Innovation was 95 percent complete before the building’s ground floor took on 12 inches of water during Harvey. Ardalan said all damage incurred—including damage to drywall, furniture and electronics—is covered by insurance. The recent flooding has not changed overall construction plans for the building, but LSC-UP officials are considering measures to prevent future flooding, Richard Weldon, LSC-UP vice president of administrative services, said. “We are examining the possibility of building a berm or retaining wall in the area that received the most overflow of water from the adjacent flood control ditch,” Weldon said. The three-story, 50,000-square-foot building will include 12 science labs, an astronomy observation deck and a geology rock wall. Weldon said 10 faculty members, eight lab staffers and four division staff members—including the dean of math and science—will be housed at the building. The building will open with 3,600 students and 115 class sections in its first semester of operation, but the building can accommodate 8,024 students and 254 class sections, Weldon said. Weldon said LSC-UP did not previously have enough classroom space to offer all the lab courses students need to graduate, and the new building will address the shortage. “After considering LSC-University Park’s greatest needs and working with the Community Advisory Council and experts, the addition of a building dedicated to science labs was the highest priority,” Weldon said. LSC-UP also plans to open a $23.7 million arts building in 2019 with space for visual arts, music and theater programs. LSC-NH opened its Construction and Skilled Trades Technology Center on W.W. Thorne Drive at the beginning of the 2017 fall semester. The 50,000-square-foot facility includes 14,800 square feet of lab space—more than half of which is devoted to the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration program—as well as six classrooms and a conference center, said Michael Burns, dean of instruction for Career and Applied Technology. The building houses 300 students in LSC-NH’s electrical and HVAC-R technician programs. Student occupancy will increase as more programs are added, including machining and welding, he said. Burns said the addition of the building will allow LSC-NH to train workers in growing fields. “There is a serious skills shortage in the United States,” Burns said. “Sixty-nine percent of Texas firms were experiencing labor shortage problems before Hurricane Harvey. Lone Star College created the LSC-Construction and Skilled Trades Technology Center to train a skilled workforce to address this need.”