Education Center Might Not Be a Washout

City officials are anxious to hammer out a deal with a Beverly Hills developer to complete the long-pending Education Center, a project that many had believed was doomed.

Officials have been working for more than four years to lure educational institutions to the nine-acre center but instead have seen the pool of local schools dwindle.

Chapman University decided recently to put its law school in new digs near its main campus in Orange. Cal State Fullerton hasn’t committed to any additional operation. Rancho Santiago College moved a satellite campus into quarters across the street.

So far, only Coastline Community College is moving onto the site, on the northwest corner of Garden Grove Boulevard and Euclid Avenue. The college is expected to complete the Education Center’s only building next month, a 45,000-square-foot facility on about four acres.

But city officials said this week that they believe they soon will move a step closer to finishing the center. They are hammering out an agreement with a developer that wants to add a multitenant structure to the campus.

Pacific Development Partners in Beverly Hills has proposed building a 60,000- to 80,000-square-foot facility on the remaining land, said George Tindall, Garden Grove’s city manager.

The proposed building would target such prospective tenants as graduate programs, trade schools and specialty schools for medicine and business, said City Councilman Mark Leyes, who also acts as chairman of the city’s Redevelopment Agency. The Agency for Community Development oversees the property.

Leyes and others wouldn’t name specific schools interested in moving to the Education Center, saying plans were too preliminary. But a combination of public and private institutions is expected to operate from the facility, said Matt Fertal, the agency’s director.

The agency had courted Chapman University’s School of Law for the center and had also tried to lure several Orange County continuing education programs to the site.

Under the pending arrangement, Pacific Development would have six months to work out design, tenant and financial details.

The city’s Redevelopment Agency would provide some financial incentive to “make this happen,” Fertal said. Packages offered in the past have included assistance in land acquisition and construction costs.

In addition to bringing higher education into Garden Grove, the Education Center is aimed at helping “revitalize and re-tenant” the city’s declining Main Street, Leyes said. The street is adjacent to the center.

The Redevelopment Agency and the City Council are expected to approve the exclusive agreement formally at regular meetings scheduled for Jan. 28 in the Community Meeting Center, 11300 Stanford Ave.