Plans for ASU in Havasu inch forward

Plans to bring an Arizona State University campus to Lake Havasu City are inching forward.

Results of a 45-day study have fueled ASU officials enough to extend agreements with community partners to further determine if they should open a campus at the vacant Daytona Middle School. However, no official decision has been made yet.

“For me personally, I was encouraged by (the study’s results),” said Richard Stanley, ASU senior vice president and university planner. “That’s why we are continuing to pursuit this idea.”

Study results showed a potential 175 incoming freshman class to a campus here, but tuition generated from that student body size wouldn’t cover the initial projections of more than $2.5 million in the first year’s operating costs, Stanley said.

Stanley said university officials are now seeking ways to close that gap with only two paths to chose from: rally the state Legislature and governor for more funding or philanthropy.

“Our initial proposal of how the colleges would work financially is turning out to be pretty accurate,” Stanley said. “We are going to keep working at how it is we can overcome some of those financial barriers. … Without the state money, there is no easy way to make the things work in a responsible financial way.”

Stanley said an engineering study of the Daytona site at 98 Swanson Plaza showed “no major engineering problems,” but added that there is a “reasonable amount of cosmetic work.”

The Lake Havasu Unified School District governing board voted in February to close the site to meet a dwindling budget for next school year.

Jo Navaretta, the board’s president and also a past president of the Havasu Foundation for Higher Education, said community members would be working for the next 60 days “to try to make a plan come together.”

She said the Foundation couldn’t start full-blown fundraising until it hears a final word from ASU.

“I have had calls from quite a few people around town that are hearing about the university and they are very excited and a lot of people want to help and do whatever it takes to make it happen,” she said.

The Foundation has been trying to bring a four-year university here since 2004.

Lake Havasu City Mayor Mark Nexsen said he was “still feeling good” about the project after meeting with ASU officials Thursday morning.

“…There is significant mutual interest in moving this project forward. It is just a matter of now fitting all the pieces of the puzzle together and that includes funding. There will be some initial funding that will be required to bring the school up to grade,” Nexsen said. “I thought it was a positive meeting.”

Nexsen said the city could not provide funding for the project, but fundraising was an option.

“There is a lot of interest in moving forward, unfortunately, there are just too many moving parts at the moment and we have to nail some of them (down),” he said.

The foundation, the city and the school district all entered into an initial 45-day agreement in March with ASU to start work on the study.

The study helped determine enrollment levels at the school during the next five years.

The telephone and online survey reached potential college students and parents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in California, Lake Havasu City adult residents, Mohave Community College students and Lake Havasu High School students.

The majority of those surveyed said being able to complete a bachelor’s degree at a Lake Havasu City campus in three years instead of four was appealing.

Potential Arizona students also liked the proposed $5,400 annual tuition. A resident undergraduate at the university’s main campus in Tempe pays $8,128 a year, as previously reported.

If all potential 175 incoming freshman were state residents, the tuition would reel in an estimated $945,000. The proposed out-of-state tuition in the survey was $8,000 annually.

“There is a reasonable level of interest among all the population in a college here,” Stanley said.

Stanley said no conversations have occurred with the governor or at least one state legislator about providing funding for the Lake Havasu City campus potential project. He said ASU does not have the funding to close the budget gap the first few years the campus would be open.

He said if the campus opens and enrolls between 700 to 800 students in the first four years, ASU officials would consider that as having “done quite well in converting the site.”

Stanley said ASU officials have had conversations with close to a dozen cities around the state about opening college campuses in their communities. Of the 12, four turned into serious conversations and two are “very active:” Lake Havasu City and Payson.

You may contact the reporter at jleatherman@havasunews.com