Cal State Officials Eager to Explore Idea of Converting Inpatient Site

With the trained eye of an architect, J. Handel Evans notices the 8-inch-thick, reinforced concrete walls. He sees the steam-heating plant and the meticulous maintenance of the Spanish-style buildings at Camarillo State Hospital.

He even takes note of the new fiber-optic cable that now lies beneath the mental health center like a high-tech backbone.

“Our other campuses would kill for that,” said Evans, the acting president of the yet-to-be built Cal State campus in Ventura County.

While Cal State officials continue to draft plans to build a university from scratch on 260 acres of farmland near Camarillo, they cannot help but look longingly across town at the campus-like mental hospital complex that the governor wants to close.

“We are trying to build a new university for the next century,” said Evans, who is also a trained architect. “They have facilities that we would never have to build. It seems like a logical fit.”

Cal State officials have tried not to covet the hospital’s 55 buildings and 750 acres, fearing they would become entangled in the emotional battle to save the hospital or end up sparring with other state agencies interested in the spoils.

All that changed on Friday, when Gov. Pete Wilson underscored his decision to shutter the hospital. He formed a task force to accept formal proposals on what should become of the sprawling center.

“It’s ready-made for us,” said Jim Considine, chairman of Cal State’s board of trustees. The chairman was so enthused on Friday that he was arranging for a personal tour of the hospital within hours of the governor’s announcement.

“We are going to pursue it vigorously to see if it is going to work,” he said.

*

For university supporters, the potential availability of Camarillo State Hospital was the serendipitous turn of events that could finally bring a long-delayed public university to Ventura County.

It was 33 years ago that Cal State trustees designated Ventura County as a site for a future university to prepare for population growth. Now it’s the largest county in California without a public university.

Progress in the past decade has been particularly halting as Cal State officials tried to find a suitable plot of ground. After years of public controversy, lawsuits and reluctant sellers, the university finally completed the purchase of a 260-acre lemon grove west of Camarillo.

Now that the site is selected, there is no state money left to build.

Although California voters approved a $3-billion bond measure in November, a mere $936,000 was set aside for the Ventura County campus.

It’s barely enough to keep the planning and design work moving along. And it’s a seemingly inconsequential sum contrasted with the estimated $700 million needed to build a full-fledged university.

Furthermore, any more money for a Ventura County campus will have to compete with the needs of Cal State’s 22 other campuses. Last year, the trustees decided that new “growth” projects will have lower priority than the pressing needs of existing campuses, such as repairing earthquake-battered Cal State Northridge.

So the prospect of a ready-made campus in Ventura County has caught the imagination of those who want to turn a three-decade-old dream into reality.

*

“It would save time and dollars, and we don’t have much of either,” Considine said. “We are very intrigued.”

Cal State officials said it is too early to gauge whether the hospital could actually be transformed into a university, or what it would cost.

Yet those familiar with the hospital grounds like what they see.

“There is enough space there now that is not even occupied that could be used for classrooms, faculty offices, administrative offices, library services,” said George Dutra, Cal State’s chief of policy and planning.

“It’s not always ideally suited, but it could certainly accommodate those uses with a minimum of cost,” he said.

Dutra is impressed with the quality of construction of the hospital buildings and the rigorous maintenance, and believes it may need little seismic upgrading.

“To me, it is a very desirable site,” Dutra said. “It has a unique quality that you cannot find anywhere else in California. The entrance is attractive. The whole place is beautiful.”

University officials caution that they do not know what kind of hidden problems might pop up that could make the conversion prohibitively expensive.

*

For instance, toxic waste is buried on the grounds and might have to be unearthed. The university might have to replace antiquated plumbing or electrical wiring unfit for higher demands. Sooner or later, the state would have to widen the two-lane Lewis Road to accommodate a surge in traffic.

One major concern is the prospect of sliding into the same red-ink troubles that plague the mental hospital. Gov. Wilson wants to close the hospital because the facility is underused and its dwindling number of patients cannot justify the high operating costs of such a big center.

About 1,300 students are now enrolled at Cal State Northridge’s satellite campus in Ventura. They would transfer to the new campus, Cal State officials said, and others would be lured by additional classes.

“It would take some time for CSU to grow into that whole facility,” Dutra said. “Regardless of whether the buildings are vacant or occupied, you have an obligation to keep them clean and keep the vandals out. You have utility costs to bear. That could be a liability.”

Still, Cal State officials have some experience with such matters. They recently converted a closed Army base, Fort Ord, into a fledgling university. Cal State Monterey Bay opened its doors for classes last fall.

In a remarkable coincidence, the university’s point man who launched Cal State Monterey Bay is now in charge of building a Ventura County campus.

“For me, it’s deja vu,” Evans said.

The ever-energetic university president is optimistic that he can do it again. “Certainly we will become an economically viable organization over the next few years.”

*

Evans has plenty of support in high places. Cal State Chancellor Barry Munitz is enthused about turning the hospital into a college campus. So are a number of key advisors to the governor, though Wilson himself has not taken a position on the issue.

Environmentalists and slow-growth activists say they very likely will rally behind the hospital conversion to save the 260-acre lemon orchard from being developed in the middle of the greenbelt designed as a agricultural buffer between Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura.

The Legislature will have the final say on Wilson’s call to close Camarillo State Hospital. Although there are lawmakers who want to save the hospital, there are others who are equally fervent about getting a college built in Ventura County.

Indeed, the creation of the governor’s task force came in response to last week’s proposal by Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos) and state Sen. Jack O’Connell (R-Santa Barbara) to put a university in empty buildings at the hospital.

“I feel a real responsibility to provide a four-year university in Ventura County,” said Firestone, who represents western portions of the county and is chairman of the Assembly Committee on Higher Education.

Firestone and others can find some hope in the words of the governor, who said he wanted to set up a Camarillo State Hospital task force like the one that successfully plotted the future of another shuttered mental hospital, the Stockton Development Center.

“Ultimately,” the governor’s statement said, “California State University Stanislaus was selected as the future owner of the Stockton campus.”