Rancho Palos Verdes may not be UCLA Bruin country. But when the landlocked university saw a chance to expand out of Westwood, it paid $80 million for a 24.5-acre campus with ocean views.
The University of California bought the Marymount California University campus at 30800 Palos Verdes Drive East, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The deal, expected to close next month, includes university-owned townhomes on South Antietam Street in San Pedro.
The Real Deal reported in April that the small Catholic college on the southern edge of Los Angeles County would close. The 54-year-old university listed its main campus and an 11-acre residential complex for sale in June.
UCLA, the nation’s most popular university, drew nearly 140,000 first-year applications for 6,600 spots in fall 2021, and record applications this year.
The school’s 419-acre Westwood campus is the smallest in the University of California system and has no room to grow. So the former Marymount California properties seemed like a perfect fit.
The university’s largest-ever land acquisition in Rancho Palos Verdes can accommodate 1,000 students and potentially house half of them in the 81 townhomes in nearby San Pedro, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told the Times.
“We realize there has been frustration by the number of young people that want to attend our research universities, and this is, in a significant way, our response to that need,” Block said.
Satellite campuses are one way UCLA aims to add 3,000 undergraduates and 350 more graduate students by 2030.
The university will use general revenue bonds, a common form of funding to initiate large capital projects, to pay for the properties. Other UC campuses, including UC Berkeley and UC Davis, may follow suit with their own satellite campuses.
Marymount California, with views of Catalina Island, had no shortage of suiters – which included 285 inquiries and 41 formal bids, according to Marymount California President Brian Marcotte.
The seven finalists included four developers and three educational institutions, which Marcotte declined to identify.
He said he and the board “felt very strongly about UCLA” because of its desire to retain the small-college culture as a satellite campus for diverse students, its status as one of the world’s top public universities and its financial capacity to close the deal and start up programs in a timely manner.
— Dana Bartholomew
Read more
Development
Los Angeles
No asking price, numerous offers as Rancho Palos Verdes campus hits market
Residential
Los Angeles
USC football coach Lincoln Riley scores in Rancho Palos Verdes