Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Antelope Valley College Seeks OK for Palmdale Campus : Education: A state board’s approval of the 100-acre donated site could put the project on five-year timetable.

PALMDALE —  Antelope Valley College administrators will ask a state panel next month to approve a 100-acre site for a new Palmdale campus that could accommodate 10,000 students and give the city a huge economic boost.

If the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges approves the site, the proposed Palmdale campus will clear the first of several key governmental hurdles and be on track to open within five years, Antelope Valley College President Allan Kurki said Wednesday.

Kurki told members of the Palmdale Chamber of Commerce that his college’s existing campus in Lancaster will be filled within 10 years when its enrollment doubles to about 20,000 students.

“We have to have another campus ready to go before we reach that capacity,” he said.

To provide that second campus, Laguna Beach businessman David P. Bushnell, founder of the binocular company that bears his name, has offered to donate a 100-acre site at the southwest corner of 47th Street East and Barrel Springs Road.

In an important early review, the state’s community college governing board--meeting May 12 in Sacramento--will consider whether this site is suitable, Kurki said. If it approves, the site would be subject to endorsement in September by a second panel, the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

If these approvals are obtained, Antelope Valley College officials would be able to ask the state next year for about $5 million to prepare the site with roads, sewers and other infrastructure. If the state provides still more money, the first buildings--with room for about 3,000 students--could be open within five years, Kurki predicted.

By 2010, when additional buildings are finished, the enrollment should reach 10,000, he said. By that time, the Palmdale campus will be pumping about $33 million annually into the local economy, he added.

But Kurki cautioned that the new college cannot be built unless the city of Palmdale approves a larger development plan proposed by Bushnell.

The college is one part of a 540-acre project that would also include an undetermined number of new houses, a golf course, a park and a small commercial center, said Sharon McCaughey, a Palmdale planning staff member.

She said Wednesday that the Bushnell project, including the proposed college campus, will not be considered by the Palmdale Planning Commission, and later the City Council, until the developer provides additional documents.

Kurki acknowledged that the donation of land for the college is a bargaining chip in Bushnell’s negotiations with the city. “They didn’t give us 100 acres with no strings attached,” he said.