The Red River Hall Dallas College Richland Campus project is moving along according to schedule, the $36 million building will be finished in November, according to project manager John Keene.
Keene said the worst part about the construction job was the supply chain, adding that it was very difficult to keep up with parts for a construction of this sort.
However, the best part of the job was the teamwork. “We had a great team and excellent collaboration with the college representative,” Keene said.
The new building will go toward expanding the space for Richland Collegiate High School and dual credit programs.
Janet James, senior director of campus administration at Richland said, “We wanted the students to feel valued, and to know that somebody cared enough about them to build an environment that will support successful learning.”
James’ role in all of this was to join a team effort of architects, engineers and designers who began meeting online via Teams to draw up plans for Red River Hall. The work has taken over two years to complete. “I am very pleased with the outcome. I have been in the building and everything has turned out as planned,” James said.
Red River Hall will contain 41 new classrooms, a Bloomberg Finance and Investment Lab, and an expansion of the school of business to enable students to be successful. The new building will also feature a bus drop-off location for high school dual credit students.
James said that the project has gone exceedingly well. “I never felt overwhelmed by business. We had an incredible architect firm and a construction management team of able professionals.” She added, “All our decisions were made collectively as a team.”
“We were very thoughtful about planning and achieving our goals according to detail,” James said. “There is nothing else to change about the Red River project. I am thrilled about this success because we designed this building online during COVID using 3D structure technology, without ever meeting in person.”
Although the ribbon cutting ceremony has not yet been scheduled, dignitaries and city officials will be present.