Orange Coast College, the two-year community college in Costa Mesa, opened in 1948 on 164 acres of the Santa Ana Army Air Base with 500 students and a master plan to accommodate an eventual 1,500 students. Today, 25,000 students are enrolled each semester.
To handle the current enrollment and expected expansion, OCC recently announced its Vision 2020 Facilities Master Plan Project. Envisioned over a period of 20 or more years are several new classroom buildings, a modernized planetarium, student dormitories, a four-story parking structure, a hotel and an expanded student center. OCC would like to begin construction early this spring.
But in the years since its founding, the OCC campus at Fairview Road and Adams Avenue has become surrounded by residential development, and many of the neighbors are objecting. In addition, some of the buildings scheduled to be demolished were designed by famed architect Richard Neutra, and architectural preservationists are objecting.
OCC is working with neighbors and with preservationists and believes that compromises can be worked out so that development can proceed.
