LaGuardia CC Master Plan

Long Island City, NY
CUNY

With a student body of over 18,000 between its degree-granting and continuing-education programs, LaGuardia Community College needs as much space as it can get. CUNY asked Helpern Architects to survey its 1.7-million-sf campus, spread over 4 former industrial buildings; assess its needs; create a space program; and develop a comprehensive master plan.

Key to the college’s ability to serve its students was the acquisition of an aging, 883,000-sf former cookie factory, the largest building in the CUNY system. The Helpern plan envisioned this building as a vertical campus, called Center 3, and proposed ways to occupy it incrementally, using some as swing space for renovations throughout the campus.

We have since prepared conceptual plans for Center 3 and such smaller projects as the 25,000-sf shared space for the Sociology and Shared Learning Departments that also entailed setting in new windows and infrastructure.