“It’s finally, finally happened. It’s real — the first permanent campus of a college in Hood River,” Mayor Linda Streich said to applause loud enough to match the wind buffeting the tent atop a bluff on the Heights.

The occasion was Tuesday’s groundbreaking for the $7.4 million Hood River campus of Columbia Gorge Community College on the Heights between Hood River Ford and Indian Creek. (The May 12 print version of this article gave an incorrect construction cost.)

About 100 people, including many longtime college officials and supporters, attended the groundbreaking and reception. The audience, packed into a gust-buffeted tent, was fortunately upwind when the actual groundbreaking took place.

Tossing shovel-loads of dirt were Streich, CGCC president Dr. Frank Toda, College board members Christie Reed, Mike Schend and Dave Fenwick of Hood River, and others wielding shovels decorated with purple ribbons.

Construction is scheduled to start this summer, and the college is due to be open for classes in fall 2008, with 13 classrooms, two high-tech labs and other learning spaces. Entrance will be at a new four-way intersection at 12th and Pacific, at the east of the campus.

One learning space will be outside — on adjoining Indian Creek. The college will partner with the Hood River County Parks and Recreation District and Hood River Watershed Group to restore the stream and develop a trail to link with other sections of the county-owned trail.

“This is a fantastic day,” said Toda, who recalled that the hard work and passion of many people led to the 2001 vote to merge Wasco and Hood River counties into one college district, and the 2004 passage of the campus construction bond levy.

“I’ve had a passion for the college and especially the campus for Hood River since my first day here,” said Toda, who was hired in 2001.

“It makes you proud. We could not be here if not for the community support that made it happen,” Toda said. He particularly credited Schend, saying he “had the focus to make it happen,” and devoted himself to the goal for the past seven years. (Schend, the Hood River Community Education director, is stepping off the board this year.)

Toda also credited Dr. Susan Wolff, director of curriculum, for guiding a community-based visioning project that contributed to the design of the facility.

Fenwick, who is the current board president and himself a community college graduate, said, “I know the value of the community college system,” and called the Hood River campus a continuation of CGCC’s “fantastic story of growth.” He credited the work of college facilities director Dennis Whitehouse with getting the Hood River campus project off the ground.

Also speaking were Andrew Burke, Student Council president, and Bill Fashing, Hood River County economic development coordinator.

Fashing said the college “will be a huge opportunity for the college and the community,” as a place of lifelong learning that will invigorate the Heights neighborhood and help spur short-term and long-term investment in Hood River and the greater community.

“This (campus project) sends a message to anyone interested in this community that things are moving here,” Fashing said. The college, by providing expanded educational opportunities for an estimated 20 percent of the mid-Columbia Gorge population, will help the community respond to problems such as low wages, high poverty and the lack of affordable housing.

“This new campus won’t fix these things, but hopefully it will enhance lives,” Fashing said.

He added that “The college must continue to work to improve the community as it develops its niche.”

Burke said is looking forward to seeing how that happens.

“I have benefited directly and definitely transformed my life through coming to Columbia Gorge Community College,” said Burke, who has studied at CGCC for two years. “Thirty years from now it will be exciting to look back and see what the college has become.”