Warwick secures site for California campus

Roseville City Council voted unanimously to finalise the sale of its old fire station and adjacent properties to the University Development Foundation (UDF), Warwick’s partner in its California project, on Wednesday 15 March.

The university secured the site for $190,000, with Roseville also covering $53,406 for appraisal and engineering and mapping services prior to the sale. The site under discussion covers a total of 1,159 acres, of which 600 acres would be used for the University premises. Warwick’s Coventry campus is 790 acres.

Discussions for the sale and development of the site had been taking place since late last year.

The University has stated that with its California campus it plans to become: “a global university, capable of competing and collaborating with the world’s greatest institutions in research and teaching.”

The Roseville location is advantageous for the University as it is in close proximity to leading US institutions such as CalTech, Stanford and University of Califronia Berkely, as well as to 35,000 businesses in the wider Sacremento area, including HP and Oracle, along with high technology industry clusters.

There are three “phases” to this project: Phase 0, Phase 1 and Phase 2. Initially, the California university will be a small graduate school. Then, it is planned that it will develop into a Liberal Arts college, finally becoming a research-led institution in a number of fields, with both graduate and undergraduate students.

It is projected that by 2031 the California campus will have 6,060 students, of which 600 will be taught post-graduates, 900 research post-graduates and 4,560 undergraduates.

Stuart Croft, the University of Warwick Vice-Chancellor, said: “The vision for the partnership is to ultimately produce a full spectrum university, part of the University of Warwick, in California, in around 10 years’ time.

“The way that we see this developing is for that campus to be an integral part of this university. So it’ll be one university in two places, with all the opportunities that will imply for students here on this campus, who can spend time and benefit from learning in California.”

This news comes amidst Warwick’s continuing development of its existing campus, with the Oculus building opening at the start of the 2016/17 academic year and plans for a new Arts Faculty building underway. There has also been discussion of the University opening a campus in France.