CSUN Selects Developer for North Campus
Cal State Northridge on Monday chose a Newport Beach-based firm to transform its North Campus property into an upscale shopping center.
Announced after a 2 1/2-hour campus meeting, the unanimous decision by a six-member university panel will place CSUN in formal negotiations with Hopkins Real Estate Group to convert portions of the dusty, 65-acre lot into a profitable retail district.
CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson, the head of the panel known officially as the North Campus/University Park Development Corp., stressed that the agreement with Hopkins did not represent a commitment to build that firm’s proposals for the lot, however.
“It’s not that we bought their design,” Wilson said. “We bought them.”
Left undecided in Monday’s action was the fate of CSUN’s 52-year-old football stadium, a 6,000-seat venue that would have to be demolished under one Hopkins proposal. University officials originally hoped to build a new, 10,000- to 12,000-seat stadium with anticipated revenue from the North Campus project, but were forced to rethink their goals after development proposals showed projected profits far less than initial expectations.
CSUN administrators had hoped to have a new stadium now that their football team has become part of the Big Sky Conference.
“I hope we can continue the discussion about [the stadium],” said Elliot I. Mininberg, the board’s chief financial officer. “I do know that I’m not comfortable with a quick fix.”
In selecting Hopkins, board members said they were impressed with the 24-year-old company’s track record in building shopping centers across the country, and its partnership with Atlanta-based Cousins Properties, a $600-million residential and commercial developer that has already committed to financing the CSUN project.
“This was the safest way,” Mininberg said, mindful of the 1992 collapse of a $200-million mixed-use deal with Watt Industries to develop the property bordered by Devonshire and Lassen streets and Lindley and Zelzah avenues.
In its proposal, Hopkins/Cousins envisioned a 223,680-square-foot shopping center along Devonshire Street with major retailers such as Borders bookstore, Circuit City and Bristol Farms Market. A second phase would add a 20-screen movie theater and day-care center to the south, boosting the total square footage to 370,180. Hopkins estimated an annual profit to CSUN of $837,000 to $1.2 million under the two proposals.
“I just think the quality of the tenants and the architecture there is really going to enhance the area,” partner John Hopkins said.
Wilson said she likes the proposal, but said the development should progress carefully, in stages. “This is an asset that until we are using it does not assist the university,” she said of the North Campus property, which CSUN acquired in 1967. “The notion of a phased development with continuous master planning . . . feels prudent, wise and comfortable to me.”
She further vowed to pay careful consideration to the concerns of nearby homeowners and businesses who expressed fears that the project would negatively impact their lives and fortunes.
The developers’ plan will be sent for approval to the Cal State University system board of trustees later this spring.
Times staff writer John Chandler contributed to this story.
