A North Campus Opportunity

After two years of work on a retail shopping center at Cal State Northridge’s North Campus, school administrators last week scrapped the project. It was the right thing to do. So is the proposal to delay development of North Campus until the school can prepare a master plan for the 65-acre property, which was deeded to CSUN 30 years ago for educational uses. That’s how the land should be used--to develop facilities where private businesses can benefit from CSUN’s talented students and faculty and, in turn, bring real-world experience and expertise to academic lessons.

The Times understands the need for CSUN to find creative ways of paying for itself at a time when public institutions everywhere are asked to do more with less. But the MarketCenter project clearly was the wrong way to do it. Neighboring residents and merchants hated the project because they feared the traffic, noise and competition it would bring. Regardless of their fears, though, the project would have generated considerable cash for the university--about $800,000 in lease payments alone. In response to complaints, CSUN scaled the project down. But a smaller project meant smaller annual revenues, and that’s what finally led CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz to ask CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson to kill the project. Why use school property to build a shopping center if the returns weren’t as hefty? Good question. Wilson promptly withdrew the proposal from consideration by the CSU Board of Trustees.

Wilson and her colleagues should view this as an opportunity rather than a setback. Already, an advisory committee has worked up preliminary plans for North Campus that seek to address both the very real financial needs of the university and the very real concerns of neighbors. The plan endorses using the property to attract high-tech and entertainment companies to CSUN, a proposal that complements efforts to make the school a training ground for the multimedia and movie industries. Some retail also belongs on the site, but it should serve the campus with the kind of shops and eateries that cater to students.

Despite its legacy of failed development efforts, North Campus offers CSUN administrators and neighbors the opportunity to create something unique in the San Fernando Valley: a vibrant place where commerce and academia feed off each other. Past failures illustrate what won’t work on the site. Now it’s time to focus on what will.