CSUN Warned Not to Expand North Campus Development

If Cal State Northridge officials seek to expand its proposed MarketCenter commercial development, then “the project is dead,” a senior aide to Los Angeles Councilman Hal Bernson said Friday.

CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson this week withdrew plans to lease for development 11.4 acres of the school’s North Campus property. Cal State University Chancellor Barry Munitz had told her that revenue from the retail complex would not be enough to justify the use of university property, according to Cal State officials.

The project had been scheduled to be heard by the Cal State Board of Trustees for final approval earlier this week. Instead, Wilson said the school will reconsider the project in conjunction with future development on the remainder of the school’s 65-acre North Campus.

Phyllis Winger, Bernson’s senior planning deputy, said the councilman has for some time expressed “great concerns about allowing retail activity in an educational property.”

Bernson’s assistant chief deputy, Francine Oschin, said Bernson, head of the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, learned by reading the newspaper that the proposed $16-million, 150,000-square-foot MarketCenter project was being withdrawn.

“It would have been welcome if she [Wilson] had called Hal and told him where things are,” Winger said. “Right now we are confused.”

Winger said Bernson last month agreed to a scaled-down version of the MarketCenter only after Wilson assured him there would be no other commercial development on the North Campus property, which faces Devonshire Street, west of Zelzah Avenue.

Campus officials are considering several projects, including a four-story hotel and convention center, as well as an entertainment studio and production facilities, for the remaining 45 acres of North Campus.

Oschin said the proposed development did not have broad support among neighbors of the university, and Bernson probably would have shared their criticism had the project reached his council committee.

Wilson withdrew the MarketCenter project from the CSU Board of Trustees’ agenda Tuesday, saying she would seek to improve the plan.

Several trustees said they complained privately to Munitz that the project was too small to guarantee enough annual return to justify leasing prime university land for up to 95 years. CSUN would have received a minimum rent of $384,000 a year, contrasted with $850,000 a year from a much larger development proposal that had drawn widespread community opposition.

John Hopkins, vice president of the Atlanta-based Cousins MarketCenters Inc., the project developer, said he was disappointed at the decision.

Hopkins said his company has spent $250,000 so far on design and consulting work. He said Wilson had asked him to pare down the project to accommodate residents’ concerns.

“I have great respect for Blenda Wilson. She’s in a Catch-22 situation,” Hopkins said. “If it appears the retail center is dead, then we’ll shake hands and move on. We are a big company. These things happen.”

Times staff writer Hugo Martin contributed to this story.