As University High School students return to campus today, they will get a glimpse of construction on a permanent home that has begun at California State University, Fresno.

The $16 million project for the acclaimed Fresno Unified School District charter school that is located on the Fresno State campus is scheduled for completion in late 2010. That will allow the school’s 425 students to move from the portable buildings in which University High has been housed since its founding in 2000 as an accelerated college preparatory school.

The site is near the intersection of Maple Avenue and Matoian Way, just west of the Smittcamp Alumni House and south of the Joyal Administration Building. The initial work has been devoted to leveling the site, previously an area of grassy knolls and a parking lot. Construction of the structural metal frame should begin within a few weeks.

Dr. James Bushman, University High’s head of school, said an official groundbreaking ceremony is anticipated Oct. 16.

Fresno-based Zumwalt Construction is the principal contractor for University High, which was designed by Art Dyson for Dyson Siegrist Janzen Architects Inc. of Fresno. It is the first Fresno State building designed by Dyson, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright who has won numerous awards for his work throughout the nation.

The new University High campus is being built with state bond money authorized by passage of Proposition 55, passed by voters in 2004 to fund public school building projects.

The project was approved late last year, but was put on hold because of the California budget crisis. However, the bidding process went forward and a contractor was selected. So when funds were released July 30, construction began Aug. 3, said Bushman.

University High, chartered by the Fresno Unified School District, emphasizes a college prep curriculum along with music and operates in close association with Fresno State’s Department of Arts and Humanities. University High students enjoy access to Fresno State, attend college courses for credit and also receive a small-school, accelerated-achievement high school experience and there is no tuition.

University High construction is part of a busy Fresno State building as the 2009-10 academic year begins. In early 2009, $655 million dollars worth of construction throughout the 23-campus California State University was suspended because of the state’s economic downturn, said Robert Boyd, Fresno State’s associate vice president for facilities management.

As federal stimulus funds arrived in California, Boyd added, the bond money, which can be used only for construction, was released, allowing work to proceed on projects already approved.

At Fresno State, that includes starting work on an Aquatics Center with classroom space, refurbishing parts of several classroom buildings, renovating classrooms to accommodate more nursing students and sidewalk and street improvements.

By the end of August, a summerlong project to renovate the Thomas Administration Building, one of the oldest on the campus, will be completed. Most offices that were in the building were relocated to the fourth floor of the library.

By the beginning of classes on Aug. 24, Thomas Administration will be the home for Graduate Studies, the Academic Senate, Career Services, Women’s Resource Center, Central Valley Cultural Heritage Institute, Jan and Bud Richter Center for Civic Engagement and Service-Learning and the College Assistance Migrant Program. The Maddy Institute will move in the week of Sept. 7.

Also completed during summer was work on Barstow Avenue to eliminate a steeply angeled dip at Cedar Avenue, build new disabled-accessible ramps at the intersection and remove east-west stop signs at Price Avenue, just west of O’Neill Park.