Valley set to open $90 million academic complex in spring

The 80,000 square-foot Valley Academic Hall will house six departments, offering high-tech classrooms and a new sustainable design. 

By: Hermes Padilla, Copy Editor

Valley College’s LEED-certified Valley Academic Hall, located on the corner of Burbank Boulevard and Ethel Avenue, anticipates its spring 2026 opening. (The Valley Star Staff)

Green construction fences are coming down as Valley College prepares to open its $90 million Valley Academic Hall in spring 2026. The new three-story building near Ethel Avenue and Burbank Boulevard will bring modern classrooms and multiple departments together under one roof.

The new academic hall is an 80,000-square-foot complex that is part of a $704 million campus-wide modernization effort to upgrade aging facilities, expand sustainable buildings and enhance the student experience. The new three-story complex, with a gray exterior accented in yellow, blue and green, replaces the 1950s bungalows that had been in use for six decades. Its two wings are joined by a tall three-story central lobby that stretches the full height of the building. 

The building houses six computer labs on the first floor, 24 classrooms throughout, and some administrative suites on the second floor. The project also includes a skills demonstration and testing room, a lecture hall, upgraded parking, new pathways and underground stormwater tanks. 

The complex will house six departments: business, computer science, math, psychology, sociology/ethnic studies and emergency services.

Faculty who have taught in long-standing buildings are preparing for the transition. Laura Scott, a sociology professor who has taught in the Behavioral Science Building for 16 years, said the move brings mixed emotions. 

“I am a very sentimental person—I was actually a Valley College student and my very first sociology class was in the building. So, you know, I have strong feelings. I am excited. Progress is good.”

Even though the bungalows held historical and sentimental value, President Barry Gribbons emphasized their practical limitations. “The old bungalows had overstayed their useful life by decades and were creating safety liabilities,” he said. “The new building provides a modern, safe and functional environment while honoring the legacy of the original campus quad.”

Gribbons also highlighted the student-focused design of Valley Academic Hall. “There will be some positive impacts for the student experience, because it is aesthetically so nice, and the classrooms all have the current technology that’s working really well.” He added that bringing multiple departments together will create “opportunities for synergies, and students interacting with each other, where having departments more siloed in different buildings doesn’t allow for that same creative interaction.”

As the building’s opening nears, students are looking forward to the new complex and are now being informed that their departments will move into the new location next semester. Some said the announcement caught them off guard. “I was notified from Canvas that the faculty was moving,” said business administration major Zoyvic Moya, 45. Fellow business administration major Julian Cejudo, 30, said he only found out about the relocation “when the janitor told me.”

The new Valley Academic Hall is just one piece of the campus’s ongoing transformation. “The three new buildings in total add 279,000 square feet, which is a huge amount of space and is really going to change the quality of the learning environments at the college,” Gribbons said.