The new, 120,000-square-foot, four-story Undergraduate Teaching and Learning Facility (UTLF) currently under construction on the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) campus will operate as a modern and multi-functional educational space.
Positioned on one of the campus’s main thoroughfares, the new building is poised to serve as a new visual landmark for the university — and as a gathering place where students of all interests can interact.
McCarthy Building Companies is serving as the UTLF project’s general contractor, following the firm’s recent completion of two other major UC Riverside building projects: a new School of Business building and the North District Phase 2 Student Housing Complex, which opened in fall 2024 and fall 2025, respectively.
“Part of our bid proposal for the design of this [teaching and learning facility] project was to bring together multiple academic disciplines in one space,” said Ryan Frost, McCarthy Building Companies Assistant Project Manager for the UTLF project. “The concept of the building was to allow students with different academic focuses to intermingle in a shared campus hub.”
Projected to be operational for fall 2026, the UTLF building will include roughly 100,700 gross square feet of new academic space, including two large, auditorium-style lecture halls, 19 small- to mid-sized classrooms, six biology labs, four chemistry labs, and a 6,000-square-foot dance studio with an outdoor performance area. The top floor will include a reading room with sweeping views of the campus and nearby Box Springs Mountain.
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“This truly interdisciplinary building will foster collaboration between the three colleges represented in the building: the College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences; The College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science; and Bourns College of Engineering,” Steinberg Hart — the architectural firm collaborating on the UTLF project — noted in its project mission statement.
During the $156.3 million project’s groundbreaking ceremony in October 2024, UC Riverside Associate Provost Ken Baerenklau, Chair of the campus’s UTLF project working group, spoke to the ways the new facility will support student learning and success.
“A space like this says to students: ‘We value your education,’” Baerenklau said at the groundbreaking. “It says that your educational success is a campus priority.”
Framing on the building’s main structure was completed over the summer of 2025. Crews are currently working on roofing and façade finishing touches, along with utilities installation and various phases of interior drywall and paint applications. Construction is slated to conclude by fall 2026.
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Frost said that crews are starting with interior finishes on floor one and then working their way up, floor by floor, in a system that ensures efficient, maximized flow.
“When we put together our schedules, we collaborate closely with our trade partners to ensure that everyone is successful, efficient, and effective,” he said. “We run our projects in a way that allows trade crews to run smoothly from one space to the next on our sites. Everyone involved has a clear understanding of how we’re moving from point A to point B, so they can schedule their craftsman accordingly.”
While McCarthy has contracted with several trade partners on the UTLF construction, the company has also drawn on its own, in-house expertise to complete many key aspects of the build.
“McCarthy self-performed all of the concrete on the project,” Frost said. “Structural concrete installation is something that we take a lot of pride in doing ourselves on the majority of our projects, and it exemplifies the fact that we’re not just contractors, but also builders.”
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In April 2025, McCarthy crews celebrated their “concrete topping out” — the final touches on placement of approximately 10,100 total cubic yards of structural concrete — following roughly 52,500 overall construction hours.
“The main design component of the UTLF project, which is shared with our other two UC Riverside projects as well, is our Type IL white concrete,” Frost said. “It’s this beautiful, white concrete that almost looks like marble.”
White concrete sets faster than standard gray concrete due to its many additives, Frost said. As a result, McCarthy crews had to be conscientious about pouring the concrete at the right temperature and at the right angles and speeds, to ensure proper curing.
Additionally, because the concrete serves not just as a structural feature but as an architectural highlight in the UTLF build, its application required careful precision.
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“Our crews worked very hard to make sure we weren’t leaving lift lines [visible color changes between two successive layers of concrete], and we made it a point to utilize premium plywood for the concrete forms to ensure that all our joints were seamless,” Frost said.
Over the course of the UTLF building’s construction, McCarthy crews also have self-installed all the water, sewer, and electrical systems as well as certain carpentry components of its finishing elements, including its wood-paneled ceilings.
“The self-performing aspect of our work makes us more efficient. It allows us to control our costs, and it helps us streamline our scheduling,” said Leslee Boyd Pich, a Public Relations Analyst for McCarthy. “It makes for a better experience for our clients — and for us.”
Planning for the UTLF building began in 2023, with design starting in February 2024. McCarthy team members worked closely with the UC Riverside office of Planning, Design & Construction (PD&C) and the campus’s in-house architect to ensure that the design for the new building fit into the campus’s overall growth plan both aesthetically and logistically.
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“For six months, we held daily coordination meetings with representatives from the campus to go over design intent,” Frost said.
Project stakeholders finalized most of the UTLF project’s design features using Revizto, a cloud-based building information modeling (BIM) platform that allowed all parties to collaborate.
The sense of partnership solidified between McCarthy and UC Riverside’s PD&C teams during the recent School of Business and North District Housing projects made planning for the UTLF project go relatively seamlessly.
“This is our third campus project in roughly five years,” Frost said. “Those collaborations have enabled us to have a very strong working relationship with the UC Riverside planning and development team.”
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“We’ve taken away key insights on design and logistics from every university project, and that’s just made this third project that much more efficient and effective,” he added.
The UTLF project’s approved design features a blend of glass and glazed aluminum composite material panels that — once paired against the building’s white concrete — create a striking architectural highlight to the overall façade.
McCarthy crews will also work to create a pedestrian bridge between the new UTLF building and an existing, nearby athletic training facility. Surrounding the building, McCarthy will install Wi-Fi access points and a hardscape package including benches, trees, a water feature, and other landscaping elements, all meant to invite students to enjoy the exterior of the building as much as its interior.
Because the UTLF building sits on a major campus thoroughfare, protecting student and staff safety has been a key focus throughout the construction process.
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To divert construction traffic away from UC Riverside’s usual traffic patterns, McCarthy built a dedicated ramp that directly connects the build site to a nearby highway. Additionally, all incoming trade vehicles using the ramp are escorted to the build site by a designated guide.
“We have spotters spotting those trucks and walking them into the site, to make sure that students are kept safe,” Frost said. “So, we actually have partners walking those trucks into the site from the [ramp’s] point of entry.”
Fencing surrounds the site to keep students out of harm’s way, and directional signage flanking the construction zone ensures that designated detour paths are clear for students and others navigating campus.
“We’ve tried to be very responsive to the ways that students are navigating through the area,” Frost said. “In some cases, we’ve had to add signage to slow students down in certain areas, because they’re traveling through the space on electric scooters.”
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When utility shutdowns or temporary road or sidewalk blockages have been necessary, McCarthy teams have worked with the university to time those — as much as possible — during student academic breaks.
“We’ve implemented a lot of safety measures to ensure that students stay safe and that any disruptions to campus are kept to a minimum,” Frost said. “Keeping students safe has been perhaps the largest logistical challenge of the project.”
Construction timelines have been honed to the smallest detail, enabling the university to broadcast weekly updates regarding projected UTLF-related campus impacts.
“This project has required a very detailed, coordinated effort with the UC Riverside PD&C team as well as our subcontractors,” Frost said. “It’s demanded a lot of planning ahead of time — at times months before the various operations actually happen.”
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This effort has led to the project being “successful on so many levels,” Frost added. “It is something that’s going to serve the university for decades, and it’s something to really celebrate.”
