Site Near Camarillo Acquired for Campus
After more than 25 years of setbacks, the California State University system Friday acquired 200 acres west of Camarillo, where it plans to build Ventura County’s first four-year public university.
The site will house a college campus expected to accommodate about 22,000 students, said Joyce M. Kennedy, longtime director of the Ventura satellite campus of Cal State Northridge.
“Now we can visualize something that we could only imagine before: the vision of a public university serving Ventura County,” Kennedy said. “It’s been a long, arduous struggle and we are very excited.”
Over the past eight years, university officials tried to buy two other parcels in the county for a campus. But local opposition forced them to back away from those deals, making Ventura County the largest county in the state without a public four-year college.
In December, lemon grower Michael Mohseni, whose family owned 200 acres, agreed to sell the parcel to the university. Also, the university has acquired a 60-acre parcel, which is adjacent to the 200-acre site, from Sakioka Farms.
Now that the university system owns the property--for which it paid $7.7 million--officials said they need to find revenue sources to build the campus. The university is expected to open by 2000, Kennedy said.
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