With city OK, CSN campus now up to Congress

The College of Southern Nevada's plans for a new campus in the northwest valley made it through the Las Vegas City Council unscathed Wednesday.

Next step: Congress.

CSN's fourth campus is slated for 35 acres at Durango Drive and Elkhorn Road, property that the Bureau of Land Management has been leasing to the city.

Under an agreement approved Wednesday, Las Vegas will relinquish its lease and CSN will seek a federal land patent. The Nevada Board of Regents approved the agreement Feb. 8.

"The delegation is with us," said Richard Hinckley, CSN's general counsel, referring to Nevada's representatives in Washington. "They're fully supportive.

"Of course, anytime you need to do something that involves, literally, an act of Congress, you've got your work ahead of you."

The college has touted the campus as something new in Nevada, an "academic urban village" that mixes classrooms with retail, recreation and office space to provide everything from a place to eat to internship opportunities.

For example, "we're talking to the city about a fire station that would also have some instructional space in it," said CSN interim President Michael Richards. "It would provide fire protection service for a neighborhood, but right adjacent to it would be instructional space in such disciplines as emergency management training, fire science -- even English."

The nonacademic tenants would provide revenue to the university that could be used to pay for other buildings.

University officials hope to secure the land patent this year and have at least one building open for students in 2009.

The first building will be paid for with bond money, Richards said. The building is still being designed, and its cost hasn't been established, he said.

CSN operates campuses in Henderson, on West Charleston Boulevard and on East Cheyenne in North Las Vegas, as well as 12 smaller learning centers across the county.

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or (702) 229-6435.