CSUN Seeks Developer for North Campus Land : Construction: Solicitations will go into the mail for retail, office or residential projects to bring in cash.

Three years after an aborted deal left them in the red, cash-hungry officials at Cal State Northridge plan to launch a new campaign to find private developers for CSUN’s little-used 65-acre North Campus area.

The university today will issue a formal request for proposals for retail, office or residential projects that could be built under a long-term lease of the former Devonshire Downs racetrack. The deadline for proposals will be Nov. 3.

In the next several days, CSUN officials plan to mail the solicitation to more than 120 companies, about half of whom had previously expressed interest in the property. Campus officials said they expect to receive as many as several dozen responses.

“We have had enough unsolicited interest in this land for me to feel very confident we have a gold mine out here. It’s an ideal piece of property by size and location,” said Elliot Mininberg, chief financial officer of CSUN’s North Campus University Park Development Corp., a nonprofit affiliate.

Campus officials hope private development of the property will yield enough money to tear down and rebuild CSUN’s aging football stadium and the 120-unit University Village Apartments nearby. Both are located on the site.

But John Rollow, CSUN’s development consultant for the property, cautioned that the plan faces several hurdles. Among them are a glut of office space and the prospect of hefty development fees and obtaining city planning approvals.

The university’s last effort at developing the property collapsed in 1992 when Santa Monica-based Watt Investment Properties Inc. withdrew from an elaborate $200-million mixed-use project. The only thing built was a student dormitory complex that has been losing money ever since.

The North Campus site is bounded by Devonshire Street to the north, Lassen Street to the south, Zelzah Avenue to the east and Lindley Avenue to the west. Campus officials hope a developer would raze the existing stadium and apartments and rebuild them at the south end of the parcel, a multimillion-dollar undertaking in and of itself.

That would leave 45 to 50 acres available for private development. The most attractive portion is the commercial frontage along Devonshire Street, which has drawn interest from shopping center developers. Prospects for the remainder of the property are less certain.

CSUN’s nonprofit development corporation hopes to enter into formal negotiations with at least one bidder by March.

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CSUN Plan

Officials at Cal State Northridge, after a three- year hiatus, have restarted efforts to find developers interested in building commercial, retail and housing projects on CSUN’s underutilized 65- acre North Campus area.