Gavilan Campus location announced
Though the Gavilan College Board of Trustees won’t take any
formal actions until their May 8 meeting, a location has been
announced for the new San Benito County satellite campus.
Gavilan Campus location announced
Though the Gavilan College Board of Trustees won’t take any formal actions until their May 8 meeting, a location has been announced for the new San Benito County satellite campus.
The new campus will be located at the southeast corner of Fairview Road and Airline Highway, across from Ridgemark Golf Course and Country Club.
Officials say the land was selected because of availability and met Gavilan’s needs in terms of size and proximity to town. However, details are still unclear as to why this specific site was selected. Gavilan President Steve Kinsella explained that until the board of trustees officially announces the move at their May 8 meeting, details will not be released.
He did say the location was selected from a potential list of 16 sites, 13 of which were not suitable for the campus’ needs and whittled down to a short list of three finalists.
“We selected this site because it met all of our needs,” Kinsella said. “We listened to a lot of community input and feel that we chose the best site available.”
Kinsella is eager to move forward from the selection phase to the planning phase so that the college can begin work on planning what the campus will look like and what courses will be offered, he said.
All in all, the process of selection a location for the Hollister campus has taken nearly three years and involved a good deal of public scrutiny.
One of the initial proposed locations for the campus, near the Hollister airport, was rejected by much of the community. At that time school officials began looking for other options. They narrowed their list to 16 candidates last December, but only three of those sites were considerable.
Gavilan Trustee Elvira Robinson was elated about the potential that the selected campus has.
“I think it’s just a super location,” Robinson said. “That is where the growth is going to go in the future so it makes perfect sense to locate the campus there. There are a lot of businesses out that way with the Target and several fast food restaurants. And the new Highway 25 will help bring in traffic. I think another benefit is that a lot of seniors at Ridgemark will be able to get to the campus easily.”
The parcel where Gavilan will locate its campus is actually 136 acres, but for their purposes Gavilan only required 80 of those acres. The rest of the property will be kept by the developers from whom the college purchased the land.
Board members and college officials hoped to get a plot closer to town, but Kinsella said the location was the closest they could get while still meeting the size needs.
“The campus plot needed to be at least 80 acres in order for the state to recognize us as a full college site,” Kinsella said.
If the property is approved by the board for purchase, the college will initiate a lengthy due diligence process, which could take up to two years. Currently Gavilan is still working on the due diligence process for their Coyote Valley site and that has taken 15 months so far, so it can take quite a while. If it clears all those hurdles then the campus will have to locate utilities and can start construction.
Fortunately the property where Gavilan plans to build does not need to be annexed into the city, but will likely connect to the Hollister sewer system and Sunnyslope Water District, Kinsella said.
Eric Dietz, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer for Ridgemark Golf and Country Club is excited about the announcement because of the new opportunities the location could create.
“I think this is a good step forward in the process of making San Benito County a destination area,” Dietz said.
