NOTHING TO SHOW FOR 21 YEARS; CAMPUS SIZE DWINDLES WHILE PROJECT STALLS

Here are the facts:

Funding from a $346.5 million bond measure passed by Coachella Valley voters in 2004 was to be used partly to build this campus. As initially envisioned in 2011, the College of the Desert's West Valley Campus in the northern part of Palm Springs would have been completed in five phases, with a building footprint of 650,000 square feet.

COD abandoned the original location, bought the Palm Springs Mall site on Tahquitz Canyon, and promised an entire campus and hospitality school if voters passed a second, $600 million bond measure, which voters did indeed pass. Not a single part of the promised West Valley Campus has ever broken.

Eleven years later, COD officials presented a dramatically scaled-down project at an Aug. 4 virtual presentation – and now appear determined to build a campus of just 114,000 square feet to be located at the former Palm Springs Mall site, with a projected opening in 2027-28. By that time, nearly 20 years will have passed since COD voted in 2007 to select Palm Springs for its West Valley Campus. This is unacceptable. As the years into decades, the size of the campus continues to shrink, and students continue to lose the educational opportunity.

·       The Culinary School has also been reduced to 10,000 square feet with no analysis or input from employers. In addition, the cost per square foot of the project has skyrocketed to $2,600 per square foot. Again, no explanation has been given.

·       For perspective, this is over twice as much per square foot at the cost of the Acrisure Arena, currently under construction. That arena, which is 25 feet below ground and 85 feet tall, is a much more complex project using all union labor.

·       This is about equity. A reduced West Valley Campus simply does not do enough to meet the needs of our students and workforce, most of whom come from diverse, underserved backgrounds. In fact, 97% of students in the West Valley are economically disadvantaged, and 89% are students of color.

·       Our residents voted to spend close to $1 billion of their money based on promises COD made for a West Valley campus to complement the ones in Indio and Palm Desert. The City of Palm Springs finds this new drastically reduced plan shockingly unfair and unjust -- and we MUST continue to advocate and fight to ensure that the college campus promised to our students becomes a reality.

READ THE CITY OF PALM SPRINGS’ OPEN LETTER TO COLLEGE OF THE DESERT BELOW:

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING COLLEGE OF THE DESERT WEST VALLEY CAMPUS

VISIT PALM SPRINGS STUDY

·       Visit Palm Springs hired Convention Sports & Leisure (CSL) to study hospitality and culinary education programs from across the country to build an informed recommendation for College of the Desert's culinary and hospitality program.

     VIEW THE STUDY 

TOMORROW’S COD BOARD MEETING

Copies of the feasibility study and presentations that will be reviewed at this meeting are linked below:

Ø Feasibility Study

Ø Feasibility Study Presentation

Ø  Palm Springs Development Project Update Presentation

EMAIL: If you can't speak in person, email otp@collegeofthedesert.edu and include President/Superintendent Garcia and the Board of Trustees' emails (below). You must ask that your comments be read into the minutes. 

SHARE this information with residents and neighbors. 

Email your comments to otp@collegeofthedesert.edu and include: 

Dr. Martha Garcia 

Superintendent/President, College of the Desert 

mgarcia@collegeofthedesert.edu 

College of the Desert Board of Trustees: 

Chair, Rubén AríAztlán Pérez 

ruperez@collegeofthedesert.edu 

Vice-Chair, Bonnie Stefan 

bstefan@collegeofthedesert.edu 

Board Clerk, Fred E. Jandt 

fjandt@collegeofthedesert.edu

Board Member, Bea Gonzalez 

bgonzalez@collegeofthedesert.edu 

Board Member, Aurora Wilson 

awilson@collegeofthedesert.edu 

Student Trustee, Allen Pahl 

stascod@collegeofthedesert.edu