WOODLAND HILLS : Funds Approved for Pierce Driving Range

A golf driving range at Pierce College is a step closer to reality after the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees agreed to spend $85,000 on an architect to develop a plan.

The range is one of several ideas introduced by Pierce College President Mary Lee to bring revenue to the cash-strapped school. It would be on the north end of the campus near Victory Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue. Estimated costs are $1.5 million.

Lee hopes to get an outside vendor to build and run the facility and share income with the school. The operator also would be required to pay for various school improvements, including a jogging course and renovation of the school’s Mason Avenue entrance.

Under Lee’s plan, the operator would be required to make the range available to students who take golf as part of a physical-education program.

John Grounds, a project manager for the architectural firm Lauterbach & Associates, said the design phase will take up to six weeks. He said it appears that the driving range will have no trouble attracting customers.

Lee said the driving range could bring in about $300,000 a year over the course of a 10- to 20-year lease. She has suggested other revenue-generating ventures, including a farm museum, a 300-seat, domed theater that would double as a planetarium and a conference center that could seat up to 160.

Lee has promised community groups that she will leave the school’s 240-acre farm intact. Gordon Murley, executive director of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said nevertheless that he fears the driving range could pave the way for the farm’s demise.