Campus Must Pay Its Way, Aides Say

A four-year university cannot be developed at Camarillo State Hospital unless almost all the campus is dedicated to a range of income-generating ventures, including creation of a sprawling retirement community on the outskirts of the site, Cal State officials said Tuesday.

For the campus to help pay its own way, officials also propose launching an aggressive leasing program that initially will put most of the university’s buildings in the hands of private businesses, and the possible construction of single-family housing to generate cash for the renovation effort.

Unveiling a preliminary blueprint for the conversion to Cal State officials, planners said Tuesday that they were well aware that it contained some potentially controversial elements. But they emphasized that unless the project proves profitable, it will not win approval.

“We really want to be careful that the community feels that we’ve been upfront,” said Mary Stephens, executive project manager for the developing Cal State University Channel Islands campus. “We are putting everything on the table so that people know what it’s going to take to get a university there. We just can’t let that land sit fallow, because we need that revenue stream.”

With the hospital’s south quad envisioned as the heart of the university campus, the master plan calls for the surrounding buildings to be leased to high-tech firms, independent academic programs and a variety of other businesses interested in sharing space at the university. Some of the leases would be short-term and end as the university took over the buildings for its uses.

In addition, nearly 80 acres on the northern tip of the campus would be earmarked for a sprawling retirement complex, offering services for the elderly ranging from independent living to skilled nursing. And, if Cal State officials cannot attract enough of those uses for that property, the remaining land would be leased or sold to a developer to build single-family homes.

Money generated by those and other ventures--an estimated $6.2 million a year by 2005--would go to repay the debt on bonds sold to cover the $40-million to $45-million price tag of transforming the aging psychiatric hospital into Ventura County’s first public university.

Moreover, money would be left over to contribute to the school’s annual operating costs.

“This is our first cut at the numbers . . . to see how close we really are to generating the revenue to support our project,” Senior Vice Chancellor Richard P. West told a Cal State committee on campus development meeting Tuesday in Long Beach.

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“We do have an opportunity here of using the site quite differently than it has been used in the past,” West added. “There is revenue potential. Now we have to make a realistic assessment of that potential.”

Even if the proposed ventures generate the expected cash flow, Cal State officials said the campus will still need annual funding from the state--a projected $8.4 million in 1999, when the first students settle in--to meet all its operating expenses.

Some Cal State trustees said Tuesday that they were uncomfortable with some of the commercial risks being proposed to help bring the system’s 23rd campus online.

“We say we don’t want to take on development risks, but this whole project is a development risk,” said Trustee William D. Campbell of Newport Beach. “I’m not certain, to serve the academic interests in that community, that there’s not a heck of a lot cleaner and simpler way to go.”

In Ventura County--the most populous county in the state without a public university--residents have been waiting a long time for their academic interests to be served.

A local state university has been planned by Cal State officials for about three decades, but a series of setbacks has delayed those plans. But when Gov. Pete Wilson last year announced closure of the state hospital at Camarillo, he appointed a task force of state and local leaders to study the best possible future use for the facility.

The task force settled on a university, and CSU officials have since been developing a conversion plan, analyzing costs and reviewing academic programs. That effort took a giant step forward Tuesday when they unveiled the proposed master plan for the site.

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In addition to the other income-generating ventures, the blueprint calls for creation of a magnet school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students. School district officials in Ventura and Camarillo are drawing up a proposal for the school, which would focus on subjects important to the region, such as agriculture and biotechnology.

The plan also calls for construction of a conference center that could generate revenue by hosting teaching seminars, executive education programs and a variety of other services.

Missing from the plan was any mention of a treatment center for some Camarillo State Hospital patients who are being displaced by the closure. For months, mental health advocates have been lobbying elected officials to include such a program in any future plans for the university campus.

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Advocates said Tuesday that they were disappointed to learn that their pleas had gone unheeded.

“Nobody is listening to us,” said Camarillo resident Riva Shpiner, 72, whose mentally ill daughter has been in the state hospital for two years. “When the task force made its recommendation, we were willing to abide by that. But now give us a tiny piece, give us a crumb. This is just so wrong to have nothing in the tri-county area for the mentally ill.”

Earlier, CSU Channel Islands President Handel Evans said he did not consider a treatment center a compatible use for the converted hospital.

“It’s not an option,” he said. “We have two issues here--we have the development of a university and the closure of a hospital.”

While Shpiner continues her fight, CSU officials continue to plan.

By September, everything will need to be in place to persuade the trustees to formally approve the conversion and ask the governor to include money for the university’s operation in his budget for fiscal year 1998-99.

If all goes as planned, the hospital property could be conveyed to the CSU system in July 1998. The first students--those studying at the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge--could start attending classes in January 1999.

“Right now, we’ve done enough work to continue to go forward,” Evans said. “Now we need to find enough money to get us into the building.”

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Campus Blueprint

Cal State officials unveiled the most detailed plan yet for the conversion of Camarillo State Hospital into Ventura county’s first public university. The key to the project would be the creation of income-generating ventures to help pay the $40 million to $45 million needed to complete the first phase of the development. Plans proposed Cal State university Channel Islands to start students by January 1999.