SMC Moves Forward with Plans for New Satellite Campus

By Blair Clarkson
Staff Writer

May 4 -- As Santa Monica College prepares to pack thousands of additional students onto its already overcrowded campus this fall, the school is moving forward with plans to develop a 10-acre satellite campus at the Santa Monica Airport.

The $14 million Bundy Campus project -- which involves demolishing two one-story warehouses and renovating a four-story building on the southeast corner of the airport -- will be the subject of a meeting Wednesday to reach out to the larger Mar Vista community.

Replete with state-of-the-art electrical and telecommunication systems, the newly refurbished West Building will house several programs when it opens next year, including nursing, early childhood education, continuing education and certain general education classes, as well as a computer lab, bookstore and multipurpose room.

"We want the community to know that the college is staying current with community educational needs," said Don Girard, SMC's marketing director. "By having the opportunities to open new buildings, it allows us to shape the curriculum in ways that are responsive to today's needs."

SMC officials also anticipate the new facility -- approved by the SMC Board of Trustees in early March -- will help ease population pressure and parking woes on the main campus and enhance existing programs currently tight on space.

"We have one of the smallest campuses of any community college in the state," said Bruce Smith, SMC's public information officer, "yet one of the largest enrollments."

Currently SMC's enrollment stands at nearly 25,000 students after cost-cutting measures last year eliminated 26 percent of classes and around 6,000 students. However, to qualify for certain state funds, the college must increase its enrollment 3 percent from fall 2002 levels, Smith said.

"Not only do we have to restore all of our classes," he said, "but we have to regrow a little bit."

Originally slated to open this fall, the Bundy Campus will open its doors nearly one year late, due to escalating construction costs and a notoriously slow college permitting process.

"We've started the site work and the demolition," said Greg Brown, director of facilities planning at SMC. "The actual reconstruction of the four-story building on the site will begin in June and should be completed mid-spring of 2005. We hope to have classes there for summer of 2005."

In the meantime, SMC officials have focused their attention on addressing community concerns that the influx of students into the area will increase traffic and noise.

"The thing that we're really concentrating on is outreach to the surrounding neighborhood to be sensitive to their needs," Smith said.

To satisfy wary residents, SMC has held four neighborhood meetings since September that resulted in more than $1 million in improvements to the site, including construction of a 10-foot sound wall along the south side of the property, the planting of hundreds of new trees and extensive landscaping and the burial of unsightly utility lines.

"We're not just doing the buildings," said Brown, "we're developing the whole site. It was really an industrial site before, and we're giving it more of the look of a college campus now."

Mar Vista residents applaud the aesthetic improvements and the college’s efforts to reach out.

"So far in dealing with the college we've been very pleased," said resident Barry Vaughan, who lives two doors away from the construction. "We appreciate what they're trying to do" with the sound wall and underground wires.

However, Vaughan and others remain "very concerned" about the potential traffic increase on nearby streets.

"Being right next to a school with a heavy volume of use is not something that any homeowner looks forward to no matter how noble the objectives," he said.

"There's a tremendous amount of concern about the impacts the traffic in and out of there is going to have on Centinela Avenue," Vaughan added. "And there's a big question about the possible spillover of traffic into the surrounding neighborhoods."

In response to such resident anxiety, SMC plans to prohibit vehicular and pedestrian access to the campus from neighborhood entrances and require all cars to enter from Centinela, Airport Avenue or a new entrance on Bundy, Smith said.

And by making parking on the campus free, "there's no incentive for students to park anywhere else," added Girard, such as in the adjoining neighborhoods.

"We're now working with the neighborhood to identify precisely how traffic will flow through the Bundy and Airport entrances," Girard said, adding that the college has hired a traffic consultant to discuss ingress lanes, signage and queuing issues.

The college plans to continue hosting neighborhood meetings to address additional concerns.

"I think we've made a really good effort with the immediate neighbors that are right next door," said Brown, "but it seems some of the community that is further away from the site has not gotten all of the information."

Brown hopes the larger neighborhood will come to see the campus "as a real resource for the community, instead of worrying that we're going to overrun it. We really want to work together and be part of the community."

SMC purchased the 10-acre site from BAE Systems for $30 million in December 2001, and then leased the property back to the defense contractor through May 2003. Two months later the board approved certain property developments, including new roadways, safety modifications and equipment relocation.

The campus renovation project will be bankrolled with funds from Measure U, the $160-million bond initiative passed by Santa Monica and Malibu voters in 2002.