CSUN Center Recommended for Hospital Site

Setting the stage to convert Camarillo State Hospital into a college campus, a Cal State University panel on Monday agreed to ask the full Board of Trustees to take over the hospital property and turn it into the new home for the Ventura campus of Cal State Northridge.

Cal State trustees, who served on a campus development panel, stopped short of tagging the now-shuttered mental hospital as the site of the university system’s 23rd campus.

Instead, they proposed proceeding more cautiously by moving CSUN’s off-campus center in Ventura to the Camarillo site by January 1999. Later, they said, the site could be expanded into an independent four-year public university, to be called Cal State Channel Islands.

“This is a watershed decision,” said Handel Evans, president of the yet-to-be-launched Channel Islands campus. “What we got today was a commitment . . . for a campus in Ventura County. It’s a very, very important step in the right direction.”

The committee’s recommendation, which is contingent on several factors--including the state’s willingness to contribute $6.5 million for annual operating expenses--is scheduled to go before trustees in mid-September.

According to Cal State officials, the full Board of Trustees almost always upholds the recommendations of its committees.

Still, officials said they have a lot of work to do between now and the September meeting to persuade trustees to include the conversion proposal in their 1998-99 budget. For example, officials must lay the groundwork for a special authority to oversee proposed development ventures at the site.

“Looking at how this campus will be administered, we’re going to look at this as an off-campus center for now,” said Trustee Jim Considine, chairman of the campus development committee. “We’re still looking down the road to a four-year university. And this brings us one step closer to that goal.”

Monday’s decision culminates months of planning aimed at transforming the sprawling state hospital property into a college campus.

A local state university has been planned by Cal State officials for more than three decades, but a series of setbacks has delayed those plans.

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Yet when Gov. Pete Wilson last year announced closure of the state mental hospital at Camarillo, he appointed a task force of state and local leaders to study the best possible uses for the facility.

The task force settled on it being transformed into a university, and Cal State officials have since been developing a conversion plan, analyzing costs and reviewing academic programs for the proposed campus.

On Monday, Cal State planners presented their most detailed view yet of what it would take to launch the Ventura County campus.

By scaling back renovations at the hospital, planners said they had been able to shave millions off the original $40-million to $45-million price tag of converting the 60-year old psychiatric facility into a university.

And by focusing only on moving the off-campus center to the property--rather than establishing a full service, independent, four-year university--planners were able to save another $10 million a year in salaries and administrative costs.

At a start-up cost of $25 million to $30 million, and an annual subsidy of $6.5 million, planners said Monday they would be able to open a satellite campus that would accommodate about 6,000 full- and part-time students and that could blossom into a full-fledged university, perhaps by the year 2005.

“It’s not time to commit to a four-year university,” said Trustee Anthony Vitti, another committee member. “But of course we’re still looking at that as a long-term goal. As the need grows, our outlook will grow.”

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In pushing the proposal to the full board, the campus development committee also agreed to pursue creation of a special authority to manage development activities at the site.

To help the campus pay its own way, Cal State planners are proposing a range of income-generating ventures on the sprawling hospital grounds. Planners have suggested a special educational district--in partnership with the county--that could cobble together tax breaks and other incentives to spur development and lure firms to the 700-acre site.

Legislation would be required to create the special district. Cal State officials said the formal partnership would spread the financial risks of developing the hospital property and would cut the costs of converting the facility into a college campus.

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Looking ahead, the trustees said that before agreeing to take over the state hospital property, they want to craft an “escape clause” that will allow CSU to walk away from the property if the state’s subsidy runs dry and there isn’t money to fund operating expenses.

In that worst-case scenario, the trustees said they envision continuing to rent space at the site for the off-campus center while turning the rest of the property back over to another state agency.

But state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo), who has introduced a bill to make the transfer of the property official, said he believes the state will continue to show its support for the developing university.

“This is a significant achievement toward conversion of the hospital to becoming a four-year public university,” he said of the committee’s recommendation. “This just reaffirms what I’ve been saying for a very long time: The former hospital is a prime spot for the 23rd CSU campus.”

* STAYING PUT

CSUN president is passed over for job at Wayne State University. B9