GILROY
– Gavilan College is looking to buy 80 acres of land for a
Coyote Valley campus, its fourth South Valley location.
As the City of San Jose makes headway on its plan to develop the
untapped land north of Morgan Hill, Gavilan officials say they need
to be ready with plans and a location for a campus in the
7,000-acre valley.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Gavilan College is looking to buy 80 acres of land for a Coyote Valley campus, its fourth South Valley location.
As the City of San Jose makes headway on its plan to develop the untapped land north of Morgan Hill, Gavilan officials say they need to be ready with plans and a location for a campus in the 7,000-acre valley.
“The reason we’re moving with discussions on the Coyote Valley area initially is because the City of San Jose’s planning is moving quite rapidly,” Gavilan President Steve Kinsella told trustees last week. “We’re trying to keep up with them and move ahead of them if we can.”
Gavilan is moving ahead with the help of two consultants hired three months ago: Jim Goodell, a real estate expert with Public Private Ventures, and Jim Spencer, principal of Spencer/Hoskins Associates. They will help Gavilan determine where its new campus is needed and acquire and plan the site. They already have been in contact with land owners and businesses in the area.
“We are out actively looking for sites,” Kinsella said. “We’ve done enough analysis – although we have quite a bit more to complete – to very strongly indicate that there needs to be a site somewhere within the Coyote Valley range, north of Morgan Hill and south of San Jose.”
San Jose’s Coyote Valley task force is planning where to build neighborhoods, downtown, parks and possibly a lake when the area is developed. Task force members will choose from three rough plans for incorporating environmental features, like creeks and hills, and a transit system into the area by Aug. 14.
The college must not only respond to the enormous population growth planned for the area – Coyote Valley is expected to someday include 80,000 people in 25,000 households – but also take into consideration the proximity of the future campus to other community colleges, such as Evergreen in San Jose and Hartnell in Salinas.
Goodell, a licensed real estate broker, has previously worked with three community college campuses in the state and will keep San Jose’s planning group and city officials abreast of Gavilan’s plans for a Coyote Valley campus. Gavilan’s contract with Goodell is not to exceed $30,000 from Measure E bond funds for consultant work, Kinsella said. The college has paid him $7,500 so far.
“There’s no better time than now to be out looking for a site and getting one,” Goodell told trustees.
The longer Gavilan waits to secure a Coyote Valley campus, the higher prices will go and the more likely it becomes that the perfect spot will be snatched up by someone else, Goodell said.
“I think you’ll look back 20 years from now and see you became involved in something truly amazing, once this all gets built out,” Goodell said. “This college, wherever it ends up, is going to be needed.”
Spencer, a facilities master planning expert, is studying what impact a Gavilan campus in Coyote Valley will have, not only on that community, but on community college students in Gilroy and Morgan Hill who may be commuting to other colleges in the area.
“By taking that information, we can say that a college in the Coyote Valley area would allow us to serve those students directly, as well as meet increased demand with growth in that particular area, or we can say it doesn’t look like we will grow that much,” Kinsella said. “We do have a lot of anecdotal information, and we’ve got to get some hard numbers.”
Spencer’s contract does not have a maximum amount, but Gavilan has paid him $2,500 so far from Measure E, Kinsella said.
“It was a small contract to help us get started, and we have to stay in front of that San Jose City planning process,” he said.
At this point, Gavilan is looking for a roughly 80-acre site about 10 miles north of the main Gilroy campus. The state’s guidelines say 100 acres, Kinsella said, but based on the density of Coyote Valley development and high cost of land, “80 acres would still work well.” The core campus would be 30 to 35 acres, athletic fields 20 to 25 acres and parking 20 to 25 acres.
The Gilroy campus is 154 acres, including 25 acres for the golf course, Kinsella said.
“Even here, we are pretty well built out,” he said.
Gavilan is committed to keeping the park-like feel of its Gilroy campus, he said, but with the right kind of density at its new site – such as multiple-storied buildings – the new, smaller campus can serve the larger Coyote Valley community, including employers seeking job training for their employees.
Goodell and Spencer said Gavilan’s Coyote Valley site should be about a 20-minute drive from any other community college campus, have a functional fit, be topographically and environmentally feasible and, ideally, be within sight of U.S. 101.
“Easy access is what we’re looking for,” Kinsella said. “We don’t want to be so tucked away that people can’t find it or have a difficult time looking for it.”
Depending on how quickly Gavilan can complete the state-required environmental work and get approval of its site, Kinsella estimated a facility could be open in five years. The land will be purchased with bond funds – Gavilan earmarked $8.4 million of its $108 million Measure E – as well as state funds and any funds obtained through business partnerships.
Meanwhile, Gavilan’s 10,000-square-foot Morgan Hill location in the community center isn’t going anywhere, Kinsella said.
“My feeling is, because of it’s location, we’re going to remain there,” he said. “You can’t beat that location, and it’s accessible to the Morgan Hill community, and it’s relatively inexpensive to us and it serves the community’s needs.”
