‘A different energy.’ Take a look inside Tacoma college’s new $39M building
A new building unveiled at Tacoma Community College last month has helped bring students and faculty together.
The result of $39.3 million set aside from the state Legislature in 2023, the new Center for Innovative Learning and Engagement, or CILE, houses faculty and classes for two of the school’s five “pathways,” or overarching areas of study: education, social and behavioral sciences, and creative arts, literature and communication.
The new space holds an anthropology lab, outdoor classroom, study rooms, a digital music lab and more. Faculty and administrators at the school said, in the roughly one month since it opened, they’ve seen how the building has given way to more collaboration between students and faculty.
“It’s amazing to walk out and see students enjoying themselves and learning,” communication studies professor Steve Johns told The News Tribune.
In addition to the building’s new features, it’s also LEED certified, which is a measure of how much a building addresses factors like water efficiency, indoor environmental quality and more. CILE is LEED gold-certified – the second-highest level of certification. Patricia McCray-Roberts, the school’s vice president of finance and administration, said it’s also going to be certified as “salmon safe,” meaning officials have designed the building to reduce stormwater runoff and pollution that could enter waterways and harm salmon in Puget Sound.
The building’s second floor reveals a stunning view of Mount Rainier, framed by Tacoma Community College’s tree-lined campus visible through massive windows. In a nod to the mountain and its visibility, each of the building’s three floors has been painted to recognize each level of the mountain’s landscape – green for the forest level, teal for the timberline level and light blue for the alpine level.
“I remember the first time the building wasn’t really open to people yet, but I sat here and I was just doing work, it was so satisfying,” said executive director of IT, facilities and capital projects Clay Krauss of the view from the building’s second floor.
In addition to its new features, the building has faculty offices built closer to classrooms and common spaces than in some of the school’s older buildings, which professors said has helped make them more accessible to their students.
“Now it’s just a different energy, you walk out of your office and there’s this wonderful space, there’s all the students hanging out, doing work or socializing,” said John Falskow, director of instrumental music. “Students just moved right in.”
Some of that was the result of focus groups and consultation with Tacoma Community College’s student body that school officials conducted about five years ago when they started the process of designing the building, McCray-Roberts said.
“That’s when students really talked to us about how they want to study together, how they want to collaborate, how they want to be close to their faculty,” she said.
This story was originally published April 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
