Cal State Proposal for Hotel, Stadium Backed by Faculty

Putting aside faculty complaints about athletics and on-campus commercialism, Cal State Fullerton’s Academic Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of building an on-campus hotel and a stadium-sports complex that the hotel would finance.

The vote of the 44-member faculty-representative body was 38 for the hotel-sports complex, 4 opposed, 1 abstaining and 1 member not present.

“I’m very pleased,” Cal State President Jewel Plummer Cobb said after the vote. She had announced earlier this week that if the Academic Senate voted against the proposal, the school’s administration would drop the long-proposed hotel and 10,000-seat sports stadium and 2,000-seat baseball pavilion. Cal State Fullerton currently has no stadium for its home football games or other major outdoor sports events.

The proposed $16-million Marriott Hotel to be built next summer on the southeast grounds of Cal State Fullerton would be the only such commercial structure situated on any public university in the state.

Cobb and the other proponents of the sports complex stressed that getting the hotel is the key to getting the money to build a sports stadium.

The construction proposal for the hotel calls for the university to lease to the City of Fullerton Redevelopment Agency 3.1 acres of land currently used as part of the parking lot on Nutwood Avenue, next to the Orange Freeway. The Redevelopment Agency would in turn lease the land to the Marriott Corp., which would build the hotel. After the hotel’s opening--target date is fall, 1988--a portion of its gross profits would go to the university under a complicated formula in the contract. The university would use that money to pay back a loan from the Redevelopment Agency to build the sports complex.

“This is a win-win situation for all concerned,” Fullerton City Manager William C. Winter said after the faculty vote. “We take a small portion of land and turn it into revenue-producing entities that benefit the city and the university.”

Cobb said no state money will be used to build the hotel and the $6.7-million sports complex. And, she said, the deal can be completed “without having to do any private fund raising on our part.”

Cobb and Sal Rinella, vice president for administration, told the faculty that the sports complex, when completed in 1989, would be self-sustaining from its own ticket sales and would be rented out to sports and civic groups.

Faculty opposition was aimed less at the novel hotel proposal than at the sports complex. Faculty critics charged that a sports complex would mean expanding athletics at the expense of academics, and they said sports already gets too much of scarce education money.

“As the university has grown, more resources seem to be devoted to the athletic program, which means that students are impoverished,” charged history professor Leland J. Bellot.

“I’m not anti-athletics, but I’ve always been concerned about the shift of resources into athletics,” said history professor Robert Feldman.

Cobb, in offering a rebuttal to such criticism, told the faculty that the sports complex would in no way take money from academics. “The major mission of this university is academics and support of the instructional program,” she said. She also said that the hotel itself might be a learning laboratory for future students.

Hotel Management Program

“We are going to begin discussions with Marriott about a hotel-management program,” Cobb said. With a major hotel on the campus, she said, offering such an academic program at Cal State Fullerton “would be a natural for us.”

Cal State Fullerton Athletic Director Ed Carroll said that at least 5,000 fans per game would come to see the Cal State Titans if the university could offer football at an on-campus stadium, rather than having to rent Santa Ana’s municipal stadium.

Some faculty members said they didn’t think a 10,000-seat football stadium would be sufficient for big-name teams Fullerton may play in the future. But Carroll said a stadium that size would be a distinct improvement over having to play home games in Santa Ana Stadium, which draws few Titans fans.

Carroll also disclosed that Cal State Fullerton has an agreement to play a football game against the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, although not too soon.

“We’ll play Army in 2003,” he said. “I know that sounds a long time away, but it’ll be here before you know it.”

Many of those speaking at Thursday’s two-hour meeting warmly praised the hotel-sports complex proposal.

‘Good Investment’

Michael Vicencia of Bellflower, a student representative on the Academic Senate, said, “I am firmly convinced this is intelligent planning.” Finance professor Donald Crane, who called the proposal a “good investment for the university,” made the key motion that called for an Academic Senate vote of support for the hotel and sports complex.

William Puzo, a geography professor, said high-quality academics and nationally known athletics can be achieved simultaneously. He cited the University of Notre Dame as an example. Puzo also noted that “for better or worse, the media tend to give favorable attention to sports stories.” He said The Times’ recent Page 1 story about a Chinese gymnast who will compete for Cal State Fullerton is a good example of “what kind of a story it takes to make the front page.”

Few of the speakers challenged the hotel itself, although Jack A. Crabbs Jr., a history professor, said he has been repeatedly asked by colleagues, “Are you going to approve that god-awful hotel?”

English lecturer Judith Leder, who ultimately voted against the hotel proposal, said, “My understanding of a university is that you are not to be in the pocket of business.”

Three Hurdles Remain

Cobb said after the faculty meeting that three more hurdles remain before ground breaking can be assured. She said the Fullerton City Council, acting in its role as the Redevelopment Agency, must give final approval next week to the plans. And she said an administrative committee of the California State University system and, finally, the CSU Board of Trustees must approve.

Campus officials, however, noted that the Fullerton City Council has long promoted the twin projects, and the CSU trustees have also indicated support. The faculty’s vote Thursday was thus generally viewed as the last big challenge to the hotel and sports complex. “We plan to have both under construction by next summer,” said a jubilant Rinella after the faculty vote.

Cal State Fullerton, with 24,000 students this fall, is the largest four-year university in Orange County. It ranks sixth in enrollment among the 19 California State University campuses.

In a dismal season, stadium support comes as good news to the Fullerton football team. See Sports, Page 20.