Clark College acquires land for north county campus
The Clark College Foundation has been given more land in Ridgefield, valued at about $730,000, and has purchased a $2 million tract to create a gateway to the Vancouver college’s planned north county satellite campus.
Ridgefield East 1 Associates LLC, an entity registered to Tualatin, Ore.-based Gramor Development, donated and sold the land — a total of about 10.3 acres — located on the east side of Northeast 65th Avenue. The site, east of the Interstate 5 junction with Pioneer Street, is adjacent to 59 acres the college has already acquired, portions of which were donated and sold by the Boschma family, former dairy farmers in the area.
The planned four-building campus is to be known as Clark College at Boschma Farms in recognition of the family’s donation. The foundation also paid $5.67 million for a portion of the Boschma tract.
Construction on the first 70,000-square-foot building could start within the decade. The Legislature approved the project in 2009 and would fund the work over the next six years, on the expectation that Clark’s enrollment will continue to grow.
The two-year college’s main Vancouver campus serves approximately 16,000 students per quarter, according to a written statement issued by the college.
Extending reach
College officials have said the north county campus will extend the reach of the institution to an area that increasingly is poised for growth. It will serve as a commuter college for the county’s northernmost population, with programs in the health care field, some general education courses and the Running Start program, which allows high school students to earn college credit. The development may also include some retail space to serve the student population.
In addition to its central campus, Clark College operates two satellite sites — Clark Center, which opened in 2006 on Washington State University Vancouver’s Salmon Creek campus, and an east Vancouver location at Columbia Tech Center, which opened in 2009.
