Plans for Sacramento State to have off-campus faculty housing hinge on successful completion of negotiations for abandoned California Youth Authority property near campus before this summer.

Negotiations between Sac State and the state Department of General Services have been ongoing for over a year, said Matt Altier, executive director of the CSUS Foundation and vice president of capital planning and resource development for the university.

The property, about 24 acres on Ramona Avenue located approximately one-and-a-half miles from Sac State, was declared surplus last year by the legislature. Sac State was the only agency to inquire about the property, said Matt Bender, spokesman for the Department of General Services.

“We started writing letters to see if we could get (the property),” Altier said, adding that the process started as soon as it was known that the property was available.

While negotiations are still underway, it is unknown how much Sac State will pay for the land. The price tag for the project when completed is also yet to be released.

The property currently has prison-style buildings on it. If the negotiations are successful, Altier said there are plans to change the look of the property drastically.

“What we’d like to do is develop an entire residential village, a mix of apartments, houses and condominiums,” Altier said. “We are trying to make it mostly affordable. We would tear everything down to the dirt and build new housing.”

The goal is to use the residential village as a recruiting tool when the university is looking for new faculty and staff on a national level, Altier said. He added that CSU Fullerton has faculty housing.

Two-and-a-half years ago, CSU Fullerton took the major step of acquiring land and building faculty housing, said Bill Dickerson, executive director of the CSU Fullerton housing authority. He said the housing complex, called University Gables, has been an excellent tool for attracting tenure-track faculty on a national level.

“Many faculty would not have made the decision to relocate if housing was not available,” Dickerson said.

The university owns the land, so a prospective buyer is paying for the home only and does not own the land, he said. This allows the university to substantially undercut market value, sometimes by as much as $200,000 for a single home.

At Sac State, the village would be part of an overall redevelopment of the area, including the Ramona Avenue project and the Folsom Boulevard widening project.

Ted Davini is the project manager for the Ramona Avenue project. He said one of the project’s goals, which would be completed in conjunction with the Folsom Boulevard widening project, is to improve traffic flow.

“From a circulation perspective, it will help the city, CSUS and the 65th Street redevelopment area,” Davini said.

He also said that the city would be looking to Sac State to fund an access road near the Alumni Center. The overall cost of the Folsom Boulevard and Ramona Avenue projects is $45 million, with Ramona Avenue costing $6 million to $7 million.

Larry Meade can be reached at [email protected]