It has been over five months since Davies Hall and its 36 classrooms and 95 offices shut down, sending American River College students and faculty into a frenzy. Since then, ARC has found a way to navigate around the building being closed and has loosely established plans for replacing the building.

Davies Hall will undergo a reconstruction process, as opposed to retrofitting. This means that the building will likely be demolished and completely reconstructed rather than updating the already standing building. The new building is scheduled to re-open in 2029.

“I think ultimately, retrofitting was going to be very expensive,” said Kaitlyn Collignon, ARC’s public information officer. “At a certain point, then you’re weighing [a] new building versus pouring a large chunk of money into retrofitting an old building.”

Davies shut down on Sept. 8 during the fall semester after the building was deemed vulnerable to any potential seismic events.

The Davies Hall closure led to a large chunk of ARC’s classrooms and offices being taken away. With the completion of multiple construction projects in the near future, including the lower library and the new Technical Education building, that shortage of classrooms and offices can at least be partially relieved.

“We’re hoping [the lower library] will add a few [classrooms and offices] back to the mix and then the new career technical education building will be completed this fall,” Collignon said.

A third portable village will also be opened in the Stadium Lot, allowing for an additional 30 classrooms and 90 offices to alleviate the closure of Davies, ARC President Lisa Cardoza said in an email sent out to the ARC community.

When the demolition and rebuilding process for Davies officially starts, it will likely require space for the construction crew, similar to how they house a portion of the Myrtle Street parking lot with the Tech Ed construction project, according to Collignon.

“It will probably take some level of either [College Oak Drive], or somewhere they can get trucks into,” Collignon said. “But, they’ll figure all that out and we’ll be able to share with the campus what kind of impact that will have when they get to demolition.”

Although the completion of the new Davies Hall is estimated to finish around 2029, that date is still subject to change.