An event center, innovation hub, and more student housing, outdoor collaborative learning areas and places for students to buy food and other necessities are proposed for Cal State Fullerton to transform it into a 24-hour campus and boost student success.

In one of two presentations April 10, Bradley Leathley of Flad Architects introduced three options in an updated Master Plan to audience members who crowded into the Clayes Performing Arts Center lobby. The options were the result of over a year of interviews, surveys and discussions with members of the campus community on building uses and locations, campus boundaries and expansions, open space and transportation.

“We are looking at ideas that will help make the campus go from a commuter campus that’s populated 7:30 in the morning until 7 at night to more like 18- to 24-hours, including more housing for freshmen and sophomores,” Leathley said in the morning session. “Graduation rates are helped when students spend more time on campus working with each other, helping each other.”

Flad Architect Bradley Leathley highlights future campus potential. (Photo courtesy Cal State Fullerton)

CSUF and community members interact with proposals of the Master Plan. (Photo courtesy Cal State Fullerton)

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Flad Architect Bradley Leathley explains open space in the new Master Plan. (Photo courtesy Cal State Fullerton)

CSUF Housing Community Coordinator Jennifer Ortiz interacts with facsimiles of campus buildings in the Master Plan. (Photo courtesy Cal State Fullerton)

Fullerton Arboretum Director Gregory Dyment provides a tour of the Arboretum (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Contributing Photographer)



Roy Reid, manager of the farm, picks citrus fruits at the 26-acre Fullerton Arboretum in Fullerton on Friday, Feb. 8, 2019. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Contributing Photographer)

Leathley emphasized that the options are just ideas and asked audience members to check out the various poster boards in the lobby for each part of the Master Plan and write comments on Post-it notes. Those comments, he said, will be part of the decision making for the final proposal, which will be voted on by CSUF and California State University officials.

But many in the morning audience had come to hear proposals for the Fullerton Arboretum after weeks of rumors and online petitions that warned that a parking lot or dormitories were planned for the popular 26-acre botanical garden.

Leathley and later Danny Kim, CSUF’s vice president and chief financial officer for the Division of Administration and Finance, tried to put their fears to rest, saying there are no plans for a parking lot on Arboretum property and only an idea in the Master Plan for a conference center at the southeast edge of the Arboretum that could include some student housing.

“We’re at the point now where we have a much better understanding of the robust nature of the Arboretum and are big believers in helping it make that next step,” Leathley told the crowd. “There are structures within it that should be replaced, there’s an interest among students for a wellness center and interest in a sustainability center, all kinds of things that will enhance, not take away from the Arboretum.”

The three options presented on a poster board for the Arboretum all include some type of development.

Option A proposes the conference center with housing and meeting space. Option B proposed the conference center/housing and a student wellness center at the southern edge of the Arboretum. Option C has the most buildings: the conference center/housing, student wellness center, a sustainability center, a greenhouse and research building, a new administration building and a maintenance building.

A number of audience members asked for a Q&A session about the Arboretum after the Master Plan presentation. Several spoke out against any development of the Arboretum, saying it is already a center for outdoor collaborative learning, and buildings aren’t needed.

Arboretum Director Gregory Dyment said after the presentation that he didn’t understand why a wellness center building was necessary.

“I think the wellness center is the Arboretum,” Dyment said. “You go there and feel well. I don’t need to sit in a building and look out the window at the Arboretum. I don’t know where they got that.”

He did say he supported a greenhouse that could be used by the many researchers from the university who use the Arboretum.

Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College and CSUF alum, criticized the plans. She also asked the audience to donate money to support the Arboretum, which loses its funding from the city of Fullerton in December 2020 and will officially become part of CSUF.

“I’ve participated in master plans like this at Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College since 1988,” Balma said. “Here’s the problem with all of these wonderful and beautiful very expensive layouts. It’s a false premise. You’re not thinking outside of the box.

“What about dorms at University Village, what about taking over Nutwood, what about Brea Mall with it losing Sears and Macys, with direct bus lines to CSUF.”

Kim said what the Master Plan does is integrate the Arboretum into the university. He said the conference center/housing option was an example of that.

Arboretum officials had expressed a desire for a potential conference center where they could host scientific conferences, he said. But to operate a conference center would require expertise and financial resources the Arboretum doesn’t have, he said.

“Is there a way we can move forward with that plan with a residential hall and conference center the Arboretum could use?” Kim said.

By mid-afternoon, the poster board for the Arboretum was covered in Post-it notes with comments such as “Student wellness is best met with fewer buildings and more green spaces” and “The default option of not putting anything in the Arboretum should be the top priority/option.”

Growth at Cal State Fullerton is an important component in the Master Plan, Leathley said in his presentation, pointing to a slide reflecting not only overall student growth but the steady growth in all of the university’s colleges.

The university has approximately 963,000 square feet of learning space, he said. The CSU recommendation for a campus of the university’s current population is more than 1 million square feet, and in the future, an exponentially larger amount will be needed.

Another consideration is the age of the campus and many of the buildings. Some buildings have become outdated, he said. There have been program changes, as well, that add to the need to consider replacing some campus buildings, he said.

Two of the bigger proposals in the Master Plan — typically done every 10 years — are the event center and the innovation hub.

The event center is described as a place for performances, symposiums, job fairs, graduate events and other sporting events. It would provide a presence for CSUF in the community and be a financial asset for the campus and the city of Fullerton, according to the plan.

The innovation hub would serve as a place to connect students with professionals, and would attract and retain faculty, staff and students, the plan states. It would feature such programs as Makerspaces, dry labs, wet labs, faculty offices, lecture sites and amenity spaces.

Being mentioned in the plan does not guarantee a project will be built, Kim said. Funding is definitely an issue.

“These are all high-level aspirations,” he said. “All this does is provide a land use plan for the duration of the Master Plan. Also it helps us with regulatory requirements if and when we decide to go forward.”

Later this month, the Master Plan Task Force Committee will review the three options and comments, with the information going to the President’s Cabinet and Chancellor’s Office in early May, officials said. A final report with one preferred plan will be reviewed by the Board of Trustees.

For more information on the plan, visit https://masterplan.fullerton.edu/files/CMPPresentation.4.10.19.pdf

CSUF News Center contributed to this report

Master Plan projects at CSUF

A number of projects from the 2003 CSUF Master Plan have been completed.

Titan Student Union Expansion

University Police

Student Recreation Center

Children’s Center

Fullerton Arboretum Visitor Center

Student Housing

Gastronome

Eastside Parking Structure

Mihaylo College of Business and Economics

Some projects are planned or under way.

Promenade Project

Parking structure

Arts complex

Athletic Field House

Feasibility study for Engineering

McCarthy Hall Renovation

— Campus Master Plan