Finding Higher Ground

Community Comments

'Free' Land for Private Schools

By Janis Dice

Placer County is on a quest to add a four-year university to its long list of quality-of-life amenities, and with two offers of free land baiting the lure, it may soon be mission accomplished.
     More than a decade ago, real-estate-development magnates Eli Broad and Angelo K. Tsakopoulos tried to get massive mixed-use projects incorporated into the general plan for Placer County’s rural southwestern sector. Neither was completely successful. A few years later, they both came up with offers of free land for institutes of higher learning. The Tsakopoulos family was willing to donate 1,136 acres of its holdings in south Placer to a private, four-year liberal arts university. Broad wanted to devote land in his massive Placer Ranch property for a branch campus of Sacramento State.
     In 2004, representatives there signed an agreement with Broad to receive a gift of 280 acres northwest of Roseville. Joseph Sheley, executive vice president of CSUS, is in charge of coordinating the design of the new campus, which ultimately will be known as CSU Placer Ranch. The site will begin as a Sac State branch, then morph into a campus within the California State University system, possibly within 10 years, he says.
     The ?rst phase of the campus’ development began in 2004, when CSUS classes were offered at Sierra College’s Sierra Gateway campus in Roseville. Recently, the CSUS College of Business Administration started an executive MBA program, with courses taught at PRIDE Industries in Roseville.
     Sheley can follow the lead of other state universities that opened branch campuses in neighboring communities. CSU San Bernardino created a satellite campus in Palm Desert in 2002. That same year, CSU Northridge christened a branch in Camarillo. The experience the state university system gained from these undertakings will help Sheley get CSU Placer Ranch off the ground.

CSUS’ Placer Satellite
Continued...