UC Merced’s billion-dollar expansion plan is finished — allowing more students to attend

UC Merced’s long-awaited 2020 Project is complete after a $1.3 billion investment over four years that doubled the size of the campus and cleared the way for thousands of more students to enroll in the coming years.

The university used to be a “grazing land” Chancellor Juan Muñoz said, and seeing the campus now “the word that comes to mind is ‘transformation.’”

“You come up Lake (Road) or Bellevue (Road), and you see the campus. Everyone has the same reaction,” he told The Bee during a Zoom interview. “It’s sort of like coming out of the tunnel, and you see Yosemite for the first time. It emerges like the city out of a prairie.”

California’s youngest university added 13 structures, including an eight-lane competitive swimming pool. There are new classrooms, student wellness, and counseling facilities, student housing, recreational areas, and more space for research, according to a statement from the school.

The project officially broke ground in 2016, and with the additional room will help the university get to its 2030 goal of 15,000 students, Muñoz said. There are about 8,800 currently enrolled at the 15-year-old university.

UC Merced is the only American university that has all buildings environmentally certified, which helps soften the school’s carbon footprint. The university also committed to increasing renewable energy production and eliminate campus waste in landfills.

The project was built in three phases and was completed on-time and on-budget, officials said.

One of UC Merced’s missions is to make higher education more accessible for San Joaquin Valley natives and contribute to the region’s economic growth, which the 2020 project provided, Muñoz said.

The expansion of the university now has the infrastructure to support more students and employees, Muñoz said. UC Merced already employs about 1,500 people, the largest employer in Merced County.

“UC Merced does not thrive unless Merced thrives,” Muñoz said. “Our futures are inseparable from one another, and I think people in the community understand that.”

Plenary, Webcor, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, and Johnson Controls Inc. are all local companies that partnered together to develop the last phase of the expansion project, officials said. About 82% of laborers were also from the San Joaquin Valley.

“We all believed in the purpose of the project: building an institution of higher learning that would benefit the residents of the Central Valley and further the futures of young people,” Matt Rossie, Webcor’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.

UC Merced’s impact on city’s downtown

The growth of UC Merced was also expected to bridge the relationship between the community and school after the university’s downtown center opened in January 2018, which was also part of the 2020 project. The $45 million center holds up to 370 employees in a 67,400-square-foot building.

“The presence of several hundred additional employees in our downtown makes a noticeable impact for our Main Street restauranteurs and merchants, especially pre-COVID,” Merced Mayor Mike Murphy said in an email to The Bee. “The (center) has also acted as a catalyst for the revitalization of the historic El Capitan Hotel, Mainzer Theatre, and the Tioga.”

Muñoz, who works out of the downtown office, said there are some opportunities for UC Merced to be more active downtown.

“Merced is a city on the move, and we like to believe that UC Merced is part of that movement,” Muñoz said.

Last August, the second phase of the 2020 project was completed, including two laboratories, a loading dock, a recreation field, and a research modular server near the Central Plant that will enable electronic storage of research.

The first phase of the 2020 project was finished in 2018 and included a dining hall and two student housing buildings.

“A healthy vibrant campus is beneficial to the city and vice versa,” Murphy said. “Even though the campus is outside the city limits, many of the students, faculty, and staff live and shop in the city. I am thankful for the great working relationship and spirit of cooperation that exists between the city and the campus.”

Campus living during COVID-19 pandemic

Muñoz said the project’s completion would help UC Merced comply with social distancing guidelines for students who will be on campus this coming semester.

Just under 500 students will be returning to the dorms, Muñoz said. Half will be freshmen, and the other half will be returning students who needed to come back to campus.

There will be one person per dorm, Muñoz said, and a residential building where students can stay in case they need to be quarantined.

A few hundred faculty and staff will be working on labs with their graduate students, Muñoz said. Depending on the day, about 1,000 to 1,500 people will be on campus.

“We’re also monitoring campus density to keep it as little as possible to mitigate any possible issues,” he added. “In the spring, we will reassess. Everyone hopes in the spring it (COVID-19) will be more improved.”

A medical school in Merced?

A future project at the university will be building facilities for a medical school, Muñoz said.

“Project 2020 will help provide the foundation for UC Merced’s eventual ambitions related to medical education, which will also help improve the quality of life for the Valley for many, many years,” he said.

In June, California legislators passed the 2020 state budget that sets aside $15 million per year to support a medical school for UC Merced and UCSF Fresno.

During the first two years of medical school, students will be on UC Merced’s campus learning in classrooms and labs. For their next two years, students will be at UCSF Fresno during the clinical part of their education.

The partnership of the two schools allows Valley students to utilize UCSF Fresno’s established medical school sooner rather than wait for a new medical school.

State legislators and local health officials have fought for a medical school at UC Merced since the school opened in the hopes a medical school would attract more doctors to the area.

The Valley has struggled to bring more physicians to the area for decades. The physician-to-patient ratio is well below what medical experts say is needed. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, doctor shortages in Valley towns became an even more significant problem.

“UC Merced is an unprecedented economic stimulus to the city and the region,” Muñoz said. “The 2020 project will bring value and benefit to the city and the region for many, many, many years.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.

This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.