Glendale College to Buy Branch Campus Site

Glendale Community College received city approval this week to establish a campus in south Glendale for the school’s adult education training center.

The training center offers adults instruction in English, word processing and other office skills, said Lani McGinn, dean of the college’s non-credit education program. At present, the program is conducted out of portable trailers on land rented from the Glendale Unified School District.

“It’s not going to be very big at this point, it’s going to be fairly modest,” McGinn said of the new campus. “But it will certainly be an improvement over the trailers we have.”

1.5-Acre Site

Planning Commissioners voted 3 to 1 Monday in favor of the proposal that will enable the college to transfer students from four trailers located at Glendale High School to a 1.5-acre site at the corner of East Garfield Avenue and South Adams Street. Commissioner Duane DeCroupet was absent from the meeting.

The program’s 140 students and 20 staff members will move classes into two four-plex apartment buildings on the site by September, McGinn said. The college will pay $1.7 million for the property, McGinn said.

The Glendale Community College District began searching for property three years ago so that it could expand the program that offers adults instruction in English and office skills, such as word processing and computer operation, McGinn said.

“We’ve been operating out of trailers at Glendale High School . . . and we were notified in 1985 that we shouldn’t count on this for long-term planning,” McGinn said of the program’s present site.

During the two-hour hearing on the matter Monday afternoon, three residents said they oppose the plan because of what they believe may be lack of adequate planning and increased parking and traffic congestion in the neighborhood.

Parking Study

However, McGinn said, a Glendale College study of the parking situation showed that the 128 parking spaces provided on the site will offer more than enough parking for students since many of them rely on public transportation.

“There’s a significant need in the city of Glendale for this kind of project,” Commissioner Don M. Pearson said after the meeting. “. . . Given all the considerations, this is an appropriate site for this type of facility.”

If more state funding becomes available, McGinn said the college hopes eventually to expand the site to serve a maximum of 460 students.

“Many of our students are people who live in south Glendale and they need a place within walking distance to train or retrain so they can have better jobs,” McGinn said.

The site, which is situated on a 6.5-acre parcel owned by Glendale Adventist Medical Center, is being sold to Group Mariposa Partners. The college will then buy the 1.5-acre parcel from that firm, McGinn said.