LAFAYETTE, La. (The Daily Advertiser) – South Louisiana Community College students will experience new classrooms, labs and a lot of new technology when they start the spring semester Jan. 9 in the Health and Sciences building on the Lafayette campus.

The exterior of the building at the corner of Devalcourt and Bertrand streets features brick, tin and a large double-helix, giving onlookers an immediate idea of what disciplines will be taught inside.

Beginning this spring, it will house more than 100 class sections of nursing, biology, chemistry, physics, physical science and geology with a total duplicated enrollment of approximately 3,000 students, said Bryan Glatter, vice chancellor of administration and finance for SLCC. Unduplicated enrollment in the sections would range from 1,250 to 1,500 students.

Construction on the nearly $17 million project began Aug. 31, 2015, and the plan was to have it completed before the spring semester. A few extra weather delays are cutting it close, but students still will be inside in January.

There were about 60 “weather days” throughout the project, but most had been built into the contract. The Lemoine Co. still had to extend the contract 16 days due to unforeseen weather — most of which were part of August’s historic flooding.

“No one could build that in,” said Christine Payton, communications and marketing director for SLCC.

That pushed the substantial completion date from Nov. 22 to Thursday when The Daily Advertiser toured the new digs. The building remains empty, with furniture expected to start arriving next week. Even on a dreary day the large, open windows along the side of the building provided natural light, and that theme extended throughout the interior as well.

The 65,000-square-foot building has three floors, each outfitted for specific purposes. The first floor features a large auditorium that can hold 250. The room with a giant projector screen is to be used for lecture classes, departmental meetings or even by community members renting the space.

When rented for conference space, the area can be blocked off from the rest of the floor, which features student areas and nine classrooms that can hold about 40 students each.

The second floor is where much of the nursing magic will happen. Its halls, elevators and most door frames are as wide as those inside hospitals, allowing enough room for RN and LPN students to move hospital beds with mannequins from one of its three nursing labs to areas outfitted like an intensive care unit, pediatrics and obstetrics rooms.

Each of these rooms are equipped with technology to allow for “external viewing.” So senior nursing students could perform tasks on a patient in one of the labs while students in lower-level classes watch and learn from them in another room. Or teachers can observe their progress without being part of the simulation.

With new construction comes new technology. The building is equipped with interactive smartboards, automatic lighting for energy efficiency, and several outlets and charging stations for phones and laptops. Its spacious server room offers SLCC room to grow. The building has several devices to allow for any room to become a computer lab.