The Bundy Campus is expected to be used for nursing, teacher training and career development classes
By Daily Press staff
SMC — The Santa Monica College Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday night to push ahead plans for a new satellite campus at the Santa Monica Airport.
Planning for the SMC Bundy Campus will include both the drafting of a master plan and an environmental study, and will address concerns raised during the first phase of renovation, college officials said. It also will include extensive community outreach in Sunset Park and Mar Vista.
“This action demonstrates our commitment to being good neighbors,” trustee chairwoman Carole Currey said, in a prepared statement.
Consultants hired for the project will collectively be paid up to $362,000, money that will come from Measure U, the $160 million bond measure passed by Santa Monica and Malibu voters in 2002.
The board voted to hire WWCOT, a Santa Monica plan-ning and architectural firm, to prepare the educational and facility master plan for the Bundy site. WWCOT is currently planning and designing the college’s new student services building for its main campus. In addition, Christopher A. Joseph & Associates will prepare a related environmental study; Kaku Associates will conduct a full-traffic study; and Urban Dimensions will handle community outreach, according to SMC spokesman Bruce Smith.
The college already is working on the first phase of its Bundy Campus, a 10.4-acre site at 3171 S. Bundy Dr. that SMC purchased from BAE Systems in December 2001 for $30 million. The four-story West Building is currently undergoing a major renovation and will be open for classes in mid-June when the summer session begins.
SMC has spent more than $1 million to improve the property aesthetically and to shield adjacent residents from noise, officials said. It has put utilities underground, built a sound wall with landscaping on the south side of the property, demolished an unsightly 100,000-square-foot manufacturing building and added a new driveway from Bundy Drive. The college has also closed to traffic the rear entrance to the campus, on Stewart Street, which goes through a residential area.
In addition, SMC has held more than a dozen meetings with neighbors over the past year or so, seeking input and listening to concerns.
Aside from nursing and teacher training programs, the college plans to move its Continuing and Community Education program, which offers career development and other classes, to the Bundy site. General education classes also will be offered.
Meanwhile, negotiations to rent a second, two-story building at the Bundy Campus to a West Los Angeles law school apparently fell through. Smith said officials would not seek another group to lease the space.
“It was only going to be (rented) temporarily anyway,” Smith said. “The particular time we were looking at it as a potential revenue stream was at the height of our budget problems, and now our budget is not so bad.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 12, 2005. Read the original PDF.