Drexel planning a Calif. campus

Facing a future of diminishing growth on the East Coast, Drexel University is setting plans to open a four-year university on donated land near Sacramento, one of the burgeoning urban regions on the West Coast.

Drexel president Constantine Papadakis, who has aggressively expanded the Philadelphia university's enrollment and endowment in 12 years, last week toured the undeveloped site near Roseville and met with community leaders in California's Central Valley.

"It's a great opportunity," Papadakis said in a telephone interview yesterday. The fast-growing Sacramento area is served by few private universities, he said, and local officials are clamoring for new institutions to keep young people from going to schools elsewhere.

The deal would require the approval of the Drexel board of trustees and the Placer County Board of Supervisors. "We have not made commitments yet," said Papadakis. "But we are moving pretty fast."

While administrative functions would be shared with the Philadelphia campus, the Sacramento campus would be a stand-alone four-year institution. Papadakis said it would be designed to accommodate 6,000 students six years after it opened its doors.

Sacramento developers led by Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, whom Papadakis described as a friend he has known for a decade in the Greek American community, have pledged to donate 1,100 acres of agricultural land to attract a university.

Under the proposal, the university would sell 500 acres of the donated land to generate at least $100 million that would be used to finance construction of the infrastructure. Papadakis said he was confident of raising another $100 million in donations once a deal is in place.

"Not many universities have an opportunity to start on donated land with $100-million-plus funding opportunity," he said. "I can guarantee you we will attract more donations - major multimillion-dollar pledges - if it happens. We are optimistic."

The deal would be the latest coup for Papadakis, 61, who since becoming president in 1995 has doubled full-time undergraduate enrollment to 13,000 students and built the university's endowment from $90 million to $640 million. In 1999, the university absorbed Allegheny Health System into a full-fledged medical school, and two years ago, it started a law school from scratch.

Papadakis said few private universities have attempted to start a new campus "on the grand scale we're talking about. You have to look at Drexel and our history of successes in doing things that people thought were not possible."

Papadakis, a civil engineer who once worked for Bechtel Corp., delivered a broad proposal last week to California officials on what Drexel could achieve. Apparently he left a favorable impression. The Auburn Journal, a nearby daily newspaper in Placer County, and the Sacramento Bee reported on Drexel's interest this weekend.

"He's a very impressive man," said F.C. "Rocky" Rockholm, one of Placer County's five supervisors, who would pass judgment on zoning changes required for the project. Rockholm said he liked Papadakis' businesslike approach, and his willingness to fashion a curriculum that matched the demands of the local economy.

"It looks to me like he's done a lot with Drexel University there in Philadelphia, and Drexel would make a good fit with us here," said Rockholm.

Rockholm said the proposal would require only zoning approvals and no local government funding. The campus would be located in flat, rice-growing land that is undergoing strong development pressures - a nearby project with 14,000 housing units recently was approved.

The local developers initially approached Papadakis five years ago about building a university on the site, but Papadakis said he was fully engaged at the time building Drexel's law school and unable to commit himself.

"I wanted to have all my attention focused on the task at hand," said Papadakis. The law school opened two years ago, and last year received 1,800 applicants for 120 available slots.

The Sacramento group, meanwhile, reached an agreement with the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order whose San Francisco district was to establish a school on the site to be called De La Salle University. But the deal fell through.

(La Salle College High School and La Salle University here are also Christian Brothers schools, in the Baltimore district of the order.)

"Christian Brothers didn't anticipate how much time it would take," said Julie Hanson, a project manager for KT Communities Corp., which manages the property for a partnership of owners.

So it was with "some serendipity" that Papadakis ran into Tsakopoulos about three months ago in Florida and inquired about the university project. When he discovered the opportunity was available, he began to move quickly.

Papadakis said Drexel's board has been concerned about the flat growth of potential student population in the Northeast and Midwest, the traditional areas from which Drexel attracts students.

Student enrollment projections show a 4 percent drop in college-age students nationwide beginning in 2009 and a 10 percent drop in Pennsylvania.

Papadakis said the Tsakopoulos family is to visit Drexel in two weeks. Drexel is still trying to identify the feasibility of the project, and has to determine what academic programs the new university would offer. It could take up to four years before the university's doors open.