Officials Unveil Conversion Plan for Camarillo Hospital

LONG BEACH —  Showcasing the steady development of Ventura County’s first public university, Cal State officials Tuesday unveiled a plan for transforming Camarillo State Hospital into a college campus but cautioned that the project would fail without substantial community support.

For the first time since a governor’s task force endorsed the idea, a Cal State committee on campus development, made up of members of the Board of Trustees, got a chance to review the work that has been done to convert the psychiatric hospital into the system’s 23rd campus by the end of the decade.

Already, a financial analysis is underway to pin down the exact costs of converting the facility into a four-year university, said Handel Evans, president of the proposed Cal State University Channel Islands.

More important, Evans told the committee, is the success so far of a campaign to round up local business and governmental partners interested in sharing space at the campus, thus helping to shoulder the financial load.

Without those partnerships, Evans warned, the campus will not open on the hospital property.

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“It is well-known in the community that we at CSU will not do this alone and cannot do this alone,” Evans told committee members.

“Our intent is to build this campus slowly and methodically, without overextending our resources.”

But even that cautious approach--which calls for the campus to be developed in phases over the next decade, at a price tag of at least $45 million--raised concerns among some Cal State officials Tuesday.

Recalling past battles in Ventura County to find a home for a state university, Cal State Trustee William D. Campbell of Newport Beach questioned whether there would be enough community support to carry out the conversion plan.

“I’m frustrated with the whole Ventura area,” Campbell told his colleagues, noting the five-year effort, starting in the late 1980s, just to find land to build a Cal State campus. “I have some real concerns. I would have to be . . . shown there is no economic downside.”

But others expressed confidence that the community will embrace the idea.

“There’s a lot happening in that community to ignite [people] toward supporting this campus,” said Trustee Jim Considine of Los Angeles, chairman of the campus development committee. “I think the tide is changing.”

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In fact, the tide began changing last year, after Gov. Pete Wilson ordered the closure of Camarillo State Hospital by July 1, citing its dwindling patient population and spiraling costs.

In November, a governor’s task force of state and local leaders agreed that conversion to a university campus would be the best possible use of the hospital’s 85 buildings, scattered across 700 rolling acres south of Camarillo.

Since then, a team of CSU officials has been developing a conversion plan, including analyzing the costs and reviewing the academic programs needed. That feasibility study is not expected to be completed until April, Evans said Tuesday.

The proposed campus, with a projected enrollment of 3,250 students by 2005, would initially serve as the new home for Cal State Northridge’s off-campus center, which currently operates in Ventura.

The plan calls for the Cal State system to assume responsibility for the entire hospital property, leasing space to various public and private organizations.

Earlier in the day, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors opened the door to the possibility of setting aside a portion of the university campus as a treatment center for some Camarillo State patients.

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Heeding the pleas of parents of some hospital patients, supervisors voted 3 to 2 to have staff members explore a variety of options, including a proposal to treat patients with local ties at a 66-bed facility on a remote corner of the property.

The treatment-center concept was included in the recommendation made by the governor’s task force late last year.

“The university is going to happen. It’s a given,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn, who spearheaded the push to explore the treatment center. “This does not take away from any of the support we have given it. But the university should also hold all the values we hold.”

However, Evans said he doesn’t believe a treatment center is compatible with a college campus.

“I’m saddened that parents think that we are going to come at the last minute and save the people,” he said. “We are not a hospital, that is not part of our mandate. Our job is to build a university.”