Pierce Official Proposes Purchase of Warner Ridge : Development: Acting President Mary Lee seeks $12 million to acquire the 21.5 acres next to campus.

In a new twist to a long-running development controversy, the president of Pierce College has proposed the purchase of the Warner Ridge property adjoining the campus for expansion of the school farm.

Acting Pierce President Mary Lee requested $12 million to purchase the 21.5-acre site as part of a broader funding proposal submitmitted recently to college district officials.

“That piece of property everyone thinks belongs to Pierce College anyway,” said Lee, who is a candidate in the district’s search for a permanent president at Pierce. “To make a nice, contiguous piece of property . . . it would be nice to acquire that for the college.”

Lee’s proposal comes nearly two years after a developer’s plan for a 690,000-square-foot office complex was checkmated by litigation and an eight-year-long campaign by nearby homeowners.

Early reaction to Lee’s proposal was cool. College district officials predicted it has virtually no chance of being funded. The owner said the land is not currently listed for sale. And community leaders who have long opposed development questioned the college’s need for the land and Lee’s motivations.

“I don’t know why we would need additional land,” said Tom Johnson, a philosophy instructor who heads the Pierce College Council. “I don’t know what we would do with it. It boggles my mind.”

“This baffles me, especially in a district that has the money problems it does,” Johnson said.

Pierce has lost about one-fourth of its enrollment in recent years, the sharpest drop in the district, and enrollment fell again this fall to 14,192 students, the campus’s lowest level since 1968. As enrollments have dropped, so has funding, sending campus officials scrambling to deal with deficits.

Bob Gross, the former head of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization that fought development of the office project, said Lee’s proposal “smacks of political overtones of her desire to become the permanent president at the college.”

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With little notice to the college community, Lee included the Warner Ridge request in a revised package of $67-million worth of projects she submitted last week to the Los Angeles Community College District. The district, considering raising money through a districtwide parcel tax, asked all campuses to submit spending proposals.

Lee conceded the purchase could be made more difficult if the district drops the proposed tax. Even if a tax is imposed, the funding Pierce has requested could far exceed its likely share of revenues.

Lee’s $12-million Warner Ridge request alone is nearly 10% of the total $127 million in projects district officials have said they could fund with the proposed tax. And the college’s latest $67-million total request, up from a prior $28-million amount, is nearly half of the projected funds.

Other items on the college’s submitted wish list of projects include $25 million to expand and improve Pierce’s stadium to accommodate crowds of 30,000; $6.3 million for a proposed show pavilion for animal shows and other events, and another $6.3 million to fix the campus’ battered parking lots.

But Lee defended the purchase, saying, “Until you put an idea out there, no one can react to it.”

Pierce, located on a nearly 405-acre site, already is by far the largest of the nine campuses in the district, nearly four times larger than Valley College in Van Nuys, the next largest campus with 105 acres. And much of Pierce is already undeveloped, including its 240-acre farm.

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Plans for the office complex on the site along Pierce’s western border on De Soto Avenue collapsed in January 1994 when a deal backed by New York-based Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. and developer Jack Spound fell apart. The property, now the subject of litigation between the partners, has been dormant ever since.

Harvey Friedman, an attorney representing Spound’s group, said the property is not for sale at present. Spound’s group and the bank are the owners.

Lee said the proposed purchase is her idea. She said the property’s natural fit with the campus “stands out at you like a beacon.”

But Lee said she had not talked with the owners and simply estimated the price at $12 million, although brokers called it a reasonable figure.

Ironically, long-time residents recalled that college officials had once before considered purchasing the site from a prior owner in the late 1970s when a proposed condominium development spurred local opposition. At the time, the district decided it could not afford the price.