PrintIn our story about seismically hazardous buildings on public university campuses, we detailed a number of the nearly 180 occupied structures on the list, including liberal arts buildings at Cal State Long Beach and Cal State East Bay's Warren Hall.
Cal Poly Pomona's CLA building
Most of the buildings that engineers have judged risky in a big quake were constructed more than 40 years ago – before California building codes evolved dramatically. We didn't mention one building, however, that is considered a collapse risk, even though it was completed in 1993.
Cal Poly Pomona's Classroom/Laboratory/Administration building, better known on campus as the CLA building, features a triangular “skyroom” atop its eight-story tower and stands out as a signature building on campus.
It was designed by renowned Albuquerque, N.M.-based architect Antoine Predock, after the CSU system held an international design competition. The building would become the most expensive building project the CSU system had ever built up to that point at $24 million, according to a blurb in a 1989 edition of the Los Angeles Times.
But campus officials later discovered that the building, while beautiful, was missing necessary seismic joints and straddled the 12-mile long San Jose Fault. Not to mention the building had been leaking water since it opened in 1993, according to the San Bernardino County Sun.
The CSU Seismic Review Board put the building on its list of potential collapse risks in 2002.
The CSU Board of Trustees sued the architect and several contractors and won a $13.3 million out-of-court settlement in 2005, according to the university's financial statements.
CSU plans to request $46 million this year for design and construction on a renovation of the CLA building, although the project will likely face delays because of a lack of state funding.
To see other seismically hazardous buildings on public university campuses, check out our interactive map of the CSU system or the UC map.
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