LOS ANGELES The construction wasnt quite finished on the Los Angeles LGBT Center s new Anita May Rosenstein Campus in mid-May. There was still caution tape on some of the planters outside, and men on ladders were drilling into ceilings, securing fixtures and sweeping up, like frantic workers in The Truman Show.

But inside the sparkling glass complex, a culinary course was already underway. Six students, three LGBTQ seniors and three youth, were on day nine of their class, making a chicken fricassee under the guidance of Janet Crandall, the executive chef of the Centers culinary arts program.

Youll want to take out the chicken when you are reducing the sauce, she explained.

Yes, chef, the students said, earnestly.

Crandall, a friendly, energetic person with a short, blond haircut, was hired by the Center in January. I was writing curriculum up till the kitchen opened on April 7. We got the OK from the health inspection the Friday before.

The classes are the brainchild of cookbook author and TV personality Susan Feniger, a Center board member. The mission is twofold: to give seniors and youth marketable culinary skills, and eventually to serve up to 600 meals a day at the Center, as well as to produce food for a cafe there.

The course is 300 hours over three months. The first 100 hours focus on basic cooking techniques, including knife skills, cutting vegetables, cooking vegetables, making stock, grilling, braising, Crandall said. Then they move to the second level of 100 hours, cooking on a larger scale for members of the Center. This also includes proper food ordering and receiving methods. The students spend their last 100 hours as interns in L.A. restaurants.

Crandall noted that each student has a uniform with their name embroidered on it. Whatever you want to say you are, you are here, she said. Its something so small, but thats how they identify. And when they go out to a restaurant for work, thats who they are too.

Everyone Deserves A Beautiful Space

The commercial-sized kitchen is the spiritual and physical center of the new Rosenstein Campus. After more than a decade of fundraising and planning, the new complex is almost complete. There are two wings: one with 100 beds and 25 micro-apartments for at-risk youth, and another expected to have 98 affordable housing units for seniors by 2020. Those are linked by Pride Hall, a common ground where two of the most vulnerable segments of the LGBTQ community can meet, connect, cook and eat together.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center was already the largest such facility in the world. Now its even bigger.

At the end of the day, this is a $140 million project, said Darrel Cummings, the Centers chief of staff who, with the Centers CEO Lorri Jean and the board of directors, began raising money for the campus in 2012. Designed by Leong Leong and Killefer Flammang Architects, the complex looks as modern and clean as the Getty Villa in Malibu. Its fresh, elegant, with green roofs and mini-courtyards throughout.

When you think of an LGBT center, you think, Oh, a rented space with beanbag chairs, where you can sit and talk about how awful everything is, Cummings said. Here there is natural light everywhere. And who is this space for? Its for really low-income or homeless people. We intentionally built an iconic structure that would look as beautiful as this, because we believe all of these people deserve it by virtue of being a human being.

The need is there. The new campus has only been open two weeks, and already it is filling up. When it comes to the more vulnerable populations of the LGBTQ community, there is no such thing as a soft opening.