Ground broken on $45 million Daley College Engineering & Advanced Manufacturing Center

Officials celebrated the groundbreaking of the $45 million Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing Center at Richard J. Daley College on Sept. 25, marking the construction start for the 57,000-sq. ft. project.

Chicago-based architect JGMA designed the structure, which will include a recladding the existing building at 7500 S. Pulaski Rd. and new construction of a 57,000-sq. ft. addition extending south and over 76th St.

The Chicago Building Commission (CBC) says the project’s design builder is Old Veteran Construction, Inc., and the programming architect is Tilton, Kelly, and Bell, LLC.

The new center “will prepare our students with the tools and resources necessary to succeed in a 21st century highly-specialized, technology-oriented economy,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement. “We are making unprecedented investments across our City College campuses to support graduates in seizing the thousands of opportunities in engineering and manufacturing.”

The building will incorporate manufacturing high bay space, three classrooms, five engineering/manufacturing labs, two computer labs, and administrative space as well as a pedestrian bridge connecting the center to the existing college building that includes student collaboration spaces. It will offer 1.5 times the current manufacturing space that currently exists at Daley College, allowing CCC to serve 1,000 manufacturing students per year in spring and fall semesters.

City Colleges is working with the PBC to oversee the construction of the manufacturing center, which has been designed with input from City Colleges’ College to Careers faculty and industry partners.

The project is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2018, allowing students to begin to use the space in January 2019.