Current and Possible Future Usage
Current Use
On July 1, 2015, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s president, Soraya M. Coley, announced in a letter, “that the transfer of jurisdiction to the California State University has been completed [...] yesterday, our staff installed a sign at the Pomona Boulevard entrance for ‘Cal Poly Pomona / Campus South.’” The transfer involved the land formerly known for over eighty years, up until it’s closing in 2015, as the Lanterman Developmental Center. Governor Jerry Brown stated that, “the transfer depended on the Cal State University system acknowledging it would not be allocated additional state funds for the operation, maintenance or development of the 302-acre property [...] the university must accommodate other state agencies, such as the California Highway Patrol, on a portion of the property”.
While the university waited for the historic preservation review to be completed, it began to advertise the property on the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation website and on RSI Location’s website. Cal Poly Pomona’s advertisement is as follows: “Cal Poly Pomona Campus South is the site of the former Lanterman Developmental Center, a hospital and rehabilitative center that was home to almost 14,000 residents over its 87 years of existence. The site is approximately 300 acres of land comprised of a hospital, institutional housing, agricultural land, a single-family neighborhood, craftsman-style houses, and various California historical homes. The property also includes secure roads, industrial buildings, basements, food preparation facilities, warehouses, a power plant, workshops, recreational facilities, an elementary school, and a nine-acre rustic camp. On behalf of the university, Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc. is working with RSI Locations, Inc. to use this unique and long-awaited property as a location for the entertainment production industry. It is within the 30 mile zone and offers many different types of environments for filming needs, including warehouse space for set construction and long-term staging.”
Currently, advertising has been extremely successful because “CPP is currently receiving revenue from the Lanterman site, totaling close to $1 million annually, from use as a filming location. At this time, these funds are repaying CPP for infrastructure investments it previously made in the site and ongoing maintenance.”
Cal Poly Pomona Campus South will remain a filming location until any further plans can be made. “A Final Historic Resource Assessment Report for Lanterman Developmental Center was completed for the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) in February 2016. According to the report, Lanterman’s period of significance stretches from 1927-1969. Four buildings are individually eligible to receive a historical designation, along with a Pacific State Hospital Historic District totaling 93 buildings and landscaping.” Announcements regarding the future of the Lanterman/Cal Poly Pomona Campus South should be released in 2017.
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Possible Future Use
In October 2016, the Urban Land Institute of Los Angeles and Orange/Inland Empire published “A ULI Advisory Services Technical Assistance Panel Report Cal Poly Pomona Lanterman Site.” This 40-page report included an executive summary, area description, strategic objectives, economic and policy considerations, and implementation.
Currently one of the issues in consideration of the future of the property has been the City of Pomona. “Use of the Lanterman site has been a point of discussion between CPP and the City of Pomona. The City of Pomona believed Lanterman to be under its land-use jurisdiction and included it in an economic development plan 10 years ago when updating its General Plan. The site was intended for ‘general retail.’ After significant protest from CPP and California’s Department of Development Services, the City of Pomona revised its documents to reflect that Lanterman was state property and therefore under state jurisdiction. More recently, however, the City of Pomona once again proposed to include Lanterman in its plans, this time to provide homeless housing. CPP made clear that the City did not have appropriate jurisdiction to do so, and the plans are being reconsidered.” Currently, despite the issues arising with the City of Pomona, the ULI TAP has recommended seven strategies towards approaching the site.
Strategies for Lanterman/Cal Poly Pomona South Campus - ULI TAP Recommendations
Strategy 1
“The Lanterman site is part of a comprehensive long-term plan that supports CPP’s educational mission, fully embodying its ‘learning by doing’ philosophy.”
To make South Campus successful, their future plans for the site must find a way to connect it, rather than remain separate, from the university campus itself.
Strategy 2
“Uses on the Lanterman and Spadra campuses will be planned to make a positive contribution to the quality of life and the economic vitality of neighboring East San Gabriel Valley, North Orange County, and West Inland Empire communities.”
“Strategy 1: Develop an outreach program for communities with a hired consultant.”
“Strategy 2: Work with cities to coordinate job training programs. CPP can utilize the Lanterman site as a place to train or even employ the local workforce.”
“Strategy 3: Create outward-facing retail. Shops and restaurants housed on or near Lanterman can be sited so that they serve the surrounding community as well as students, faculty, and staff.”
“Strategy 4: Bring educational enrichment to community through a new grammar school on the Lanterman site.”
“Strategy 5: Invite the community to special events.”
Strategy 3
“In collaboration with its private sector partners, the development of Lanterman should provide CPP’s faculty, staff and students the opportunity to innovate in areas of academic excellence at the highest levels of sustainably and environmental responsibility.”
“Strategy 1: Emphasize aerospace, hospitality, education, healthcare, cyber security disciplines.”
“Strategy 2: Find opportunities for farm-to-table efforts.”
“Strategy 3: Pursue viticulture / urban agriculture”
Strategy 4
“CPP should establish an implementation team to engage a master developer for the master planning of the properties.”
“Strategy 1: The implementation team and pre-development consultant should create an RFQ/RFP to select a master developer.”
“Strategy 2: The implementation team and master developer should produce a programmatic EIR inclusive of a parcelization plan, infrastructure program, phasing plan, and land use programming and business plan.”
Strategy 5
“Each non-academic phase of the development of the site should generate cash flow to CPP to allow for its investment in its educational mission.”
“Strategy 1: Prepare an analysis of different financing options. This step should be completed by the master developer.”
“Strategy 2: Develop a phasing program including both properties. In this step, the university will take an opportunity to look at all of its assets as a whole and develop a logical path toward development.”
Strategy 6
“There should be visual, physical and transportation connections between Lanterman, Spadra, the main campus, Mt. SAC and the community-at-large, as well as programmatic connections to other Cal State campuses.
“Strategy 1: Focus development around a TransitOriented Development (TOD) opportunity.”
“Strategy 2: Break existing superblocks into a finergrain street system.
“Strategy 3: Re-open Lanterman’s southeastern access”
Strategy 7
“The site development program (both for new development and the adaptive reuse of the existing properties) should embrace the significant historic characteristics of the Lanterman District, including the curvilinear street pattern, the relationship of the landscaping to the buildings and the adaptive reuse of the significant historic buildings.”
Overall Strategies Diagram
Strategies Diagram
Technical Assistance Panel Diagram Legend:
Red: Existing buildings with a merit of their own, which stand alone as architecturally significant, should be preserved.
Green: Character-defining landscape that should be maintained and enhanced.
Olive (A-F): Areas suited to infill development.
Gold (H): Formerly home to back-of-house uses that could serve as a cool, “funky” area where artisans and those practicing technical trades could work within an intentionally “messy” and “ramshackle” environment.
Rust (G, I-K): Areas suited to new development. While existing buildings may be present, they can be dominated by new residential and agricultural/ educational buildings.
Lime Green (M-N): Hillside zone suited to geo-development.
Housing:
Due to the high demand in housing and rise in housing costs, housing for staff and students would be extremely beneficial to the university. Housing types could include townhomes, single family homes, rental, student housing, and retirement housing. The proposal for housing is that, “working with 70 acres of new housing development, the TAP found that the area could yield 315 row townhomes, 210 cluster single family homes, and 210 student flats—totaling 1,295 new units. Utilizing 50 acres of land could yield 225 row townhomes, 150 cluster single family homes, and 550 student flats—totaling 925 new units. With this mix, the university would provide 50 percent of new homes as ownership housing to faculty and staff, and 50 percent as unsubsidized rental housing for students, faculty, and staff.”
Retail:
One of the things that Cal Poly Pomona lacks is a retail center close to campus, which many other universities have. The TAP has determined that, “CPP can look to other universities in order to determine the amount of retail its community can support. For example, the University of Connecticut—an agriculture institution without a large surrounding population—provides 3 square feet of retail per student. Emory University, however—a suburban institution near a large metropolitan area—supports 10 square feet of retail per student. Building on these figures, the TAP expects that CPP could sustain 5 square feet of retail per student, totaling 100,000 square feet.” The controversy here though is that the location would work at Lanterman, but the visibility would be better suited to the location of what is currently the remaining land known as Spadra Farm.
The future of Cal Poly Pomona South Campus will rely upon key findings and recommendations:
“1. The TAP believes there to be CPP-generated demand for housing to accommodate its professors, administrators, students and other employees.
2. The Lanterman site is large enough to accommodate a variety of uses to diversify income and permit phasing.
3. If CPP moves forward, historic structures should be maintained where possible and could provide a unique identity to the site.”
The treatment of the site will hopefully embody Cal Poly Pomona’s “learn by doing” teaching method in their approach towards its future.
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