The officials in charge of approving a deal to buy land for a Malibu campus for the college withdrew the offer to buy the property. Other land in the area is being considered.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The Malibu Public Facilities Authority, a body consisting of city and Santa Monica College officials, voted last week to withdraw the offer to buy the seven-acre Yamaguchi Family Trust-owned property next to City Hall. Citing a nondisclosure agreement, no one would comment on the reason for the vote beyond that it was decided the property would not be a good place to build an SMC campus.
“It really didn’t adequately meet the college’s needs,” said Katharine Muller, SMC’s dean of external programs and the person in charge of the planning for an SMC Malibu campus.
Mayor Ken Kearsley, who sits on the Facilities Authority with Councilmember Sharon Barovsky and two SMC officials, said this week that several other properties in the Civic Center Area were being considered as future homes for an SMC campus. He said they included the Malibu Bay Co.-owned Ioki property, located on the northeast corner of Stuart Ranch Road and Civic Center Way; a second Yamauchi-owned property adjacent to the one that no longer interests officials, the county-owned courthouse property and the 9.2-acre piece of land behind the county property that is owned by Pepperdine University and some limited partners. Pepperdine has already offered to donate two acres of that site to the city to house its wastewater treatment facility.
‘We are looking for anything that is for sale in the Civic Center,” Kearsley said.
In August, the SMC Board of Trustees approved a tentative $8 million purchase of the Yamaguchi site, and the property was put into a 90-day escrow, using Measure S bond money. Muller said no money was lost in the process because there was a deal with the property owner that if escrow did not close, all the bond money would be returned, including interest. She said some money was used for geological tests done on the property, but she did not know how much because the college had not been billed yet.
According to an agreement signed between the city and SMC in 2004, $25 million of the $135 million Measure S bond must be used for Malibu projects. Already, $2.5 million was used for the purchase of the Chili Cook-Off site. The remainder is being dedicated for the purchase of land and a Malibu campus.
The college says it would like to build a 25,000-square-foot structure, the maximum size allowed by the agreement. The college would also have to follow the city’s zoning laws when building the facility.
SMC President Chui Tsang said at last week’s Facilities Authority meeting that the campus would have approximately eight to nine classrooms, with no more than 150 to 200 students on campus at one time, and no more than 400 on campus per day. Don Girard, SMC’s acting executive assistant to the president, said in an August interview that there would be no more than 350 students on campus at one time. But SMC officials have said that the various numbers at this time are just rough estimates.