Threats to the BFS...

Present...

• An HMC Parking Lot (!) and a School of Public Health?
  Harvey Mudd College is planning to buy the KGI property currently leased to the BFS in order to build a parking lot. HMC also plans to subdivide the property and sell half to Claremont Graduate University for their new School of Global and Community Health. Read more in HMC’s announcement and a Claremont Courier article.

Future...

• CUC Master Plan...
  During the KGI hearings, the Claremont University Consortium (CUC) was told by the City of Claremont that it would need to submit a Master Plan for all its holdings before any new development would be approved. CUC is presumably in the process of preparing this plan. We anticipate that it will include building on the eastern part of the BFS.

Past...

• 1985-1995...
  Various projects detrimental to the BFS were proposed:
  • CUC developed blueprints for a Claremont School of Theology parking lot on the BFS.
  • Widening of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden driveway onto BFS lab was proposed.
  • A day care center was proposed to be built on the southeastern corner of the BFS.
  • BFS faculty were asked to choose which 10 acres to retain for ecological studies as the remaining land would be used for new colleges, a child care facility, and infrastructure.
    
    
• 1997-2001 — KGI...
  In spring of 1997, the Claremont Colleges voted to add a seventh college to the consortium, the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI) and proposed to site the new institute on the western 11.4 acres of the Bernard Field Station (BFS) in spite of overwhelming opposition by faculty and students and the existence of alternative sites. After a long political and legal struggle, CUC agreed to preserve approximately 45 acres of the BFS for 50 years in exchange for FBBFS withdrawing a CEQA lawsuit. The plan was not, however, ever resubmitted to the City, and KGI's new president, Sheldon Schuster, has stated that he has no plans to build on the BFS. [More on the KGI siting controversy]

• Spring 2008 — CUC Central Facilities? School of Public Health?
  Robert Walton, CEO of the Claremont University Consortium (CUC), announced at an all-CUC meeting on February 19, 2008, that CUC plans to buy the western 11.4 acres of the Bernard Field Station from KGI and build a new CUC central facility parcel. The new facility would include the physical plant facility now located on First Street; the administrative, business, and personnel offices now located in the Pendleton Building on Eighth Street; off-site storage for the Claremont Colleges Libraries; and a parking lot or structure.

  On March 25, 2008, Harvey Mudd President Maria Klawe and Scripps Interim President Fritz Weis sent e-mails to their faculty stating that CUC had decided that CUC has concluded that keeping their Central Facilities on First Street is the only financially viable option; i.e., the plans to place CUC Central Facilities on the KGI site have been dropped. Rumors abound, however, about the future of the KGI site, including whether it will be the site of a School of Public Health.