$150-Million CSUN Building Plan Advances

An ambitious, $150-million plan to develop the little-used North Campus at California State University, Northridge over the next 16 years won the approval Tuesday of a California State University panel.

The university system’s Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the development proposal today and probably will follow the favorable recommendation of its Committee on Campus Planning, Buildings and Grounds, university officials said.

“If the trustees give their approval, the plan will be fact,” Assistant Vice Chancellor Sheila M. Chaffin said Tuesday. “We’re not anticipating any problems.”

Among the projects proposed for the 100-acre area in Northridge are a 20,000-seat athletic stadium, dormitories for about 2,100 students and staff members, a 2,000-seat auditorium, a 200-room hotel, two restaurants, six low-rise office buildings, a botanical garden, a conference center and a recreation center with an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Plans also call for construction of an exhibition hall, a 500-seat theater and a pedestrian walkway over Lassen Street, which traverses the campus.

First announced in April, 1983, the project is a joint venture of the university system and North Campus Associates, a private developer.

The development would use no state funds, drawing financing instead from bonds authorized by the trustees, the leasing of the school’s land to the developer, dormitory fees and revenues from commercial facilities, Chaffin said.

Under this proposal, the developer would keep part of the income from the commercial facilities, with the balance reserved for school projects. The developer would control the land under lease agreements of up to 75 years, after which the land would revert to the school.

If the trustees give their approval, construction of student dormitories could get under way as early as this fall and the dorms could be ready for occupancy by September, 1987, according to Elliot Mininberg, CSUN’s vice president for administration and university advancement.

Mininberg said the dorms will be built first because of a student housing shortage. The university has living facilities for only 600 of the 28,000 students enrolled.

If the general plan is approved today, CSUN still must get the trustees’ approval of specific plans for each phase of development and get approval for the lease agreements from the state’s Department of General Services.