Research park could fund foundation

BY BILL DEAVER
 

CALIFORNIA CITY — The new California state university proposed for the High Desert could serve the region with satellite campuses in addition to the main campus east of Mojave, Jim Kozak of Strata Equity Group told members of the East Kern Educational Resource Network (EKERN) last week.
Kozak, whose firm has offered to donate 640 acres for the university, a community college, and a research center, said satellite campuses could be built in Lancaster, Ridgecrest, and the Victor Valley.
The main campus would be built on land Strata owns between the Highway 58 freeway and the Hyundai/Kia automotive test facility east of Mojave.
 

Site update
At the EKERN meeting, Eric Flodine, Vice President of Community Planning, for Strata, provided an update on the proposed university site.
Flodine said the 640-acre site will include approximately 320 acres for the University campus and 320 acres for an adjacent Research and Development Park located just one mile from an existing freeway off-ramp.  The R&D Park will be on land owned by the University and future tenants will pay lease rates to the University Foundation. These lease revenues would be used not only for maintenance of the R&D Park, but will contribute significant amounts annually towards the university’s operating expenses. This revenue will decrease the amount of state funding required to run the university each year.  Initial master planning projections of the 320-acre R&D Park show a build-out of approximately five million square feet of leasable building area with a present estimate of over $50 million annual lease income supporting the University’s operations and growth.
Flodine sees the 640 acres Strata is offering as a "joint use facility," located right in the middle of the region it will serve.
Half of the land would be owned by the state. Locating a community college on the site meets a recommendation made to EKERN by California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed at a meeting in Mojave recently.
Reed suggested that a community college could offer students their first two years of classes while the state university would offer the final two years plus post-graduate courses.

Research park
Tentative plans for the research park on the south half of the 640 acre site include 24 buildings of 30,000 to 150,00 sq. feet.
Most would be two-storey to meet height requirements of the Mojave Airport/Spaceport B-2 zone. Administrative buildings in the northeast corner of the site would have three stories.
Buildings would be built around a unifying feature similar to a quad or water feature.
"The park would provide some five million sq. feet of research and development space built out over 25 years," Flodine said.
 

Foundation board
Seven community and business leaders in the region will be asked to join the board of directors of the High Desert University Foundation. They will be supplemented by a larger advisory board. The foundation has already received a $5 million pledge from Strata and cash donations from local residents.
In a related matter, a Lancaster city councilman asked city officials to see if they can find developers willing to donate two 320-acre sites in the city for a “split” campus. However, state college officials have made it clear that they want one 640-acre site, which is what Strata has offered to donate. The company owns a large area of land around the proposed site that could be developed as a community to support the new university. Surveys of the Lancaster area reveal no suitable sites within 15 miles of the 14 freeway, and no property owners have offered to donate land in the more than a year and a half since a call for sites was issued.