The S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation formally signed a contract of purchase last week for a 12-acre parcel of land from Sun Microsystems planned as a future home for the embattled JCC and a host of other Jewish agencies in the south Peninsula.
The JCF declined to release the exact purchase price of the Palo Alto campus. But it is reportedly less than the maximum of $40 million the JCF’s board voted to spend at its September meeting.
In the agreement signed Oct. 11, the JCF will pay a $1.5 million down payment, which becomes non-refundable on Nov. 21. A team of federation and JCC fund-raisers led by Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center President Carol Saal have already kicked off a 3-1/2 month, $50 million campaign.
The higher amount was set to cover interest and unexpected costs.
The deal is set to close officially Jan. 1. But many hurdles remain before the JCF officially locks up the site.
“Once we purchase the land, we need to continue beyond that and build what we need to build on that property,” said Saal. ” We need people in the community to really step forward for the first time for the biggest south Peninsula project in the history of the Jewish community down here.”
The JCC must vacate its current Arastradero Road site by August to make way for a public middle school. It will relocate to a temporary home known as the Cubberley-Greendell site. Saal hopes its permanent campus home will be available in roughly five years.
Another concern for the JCF and JCC is completing due diligence. The exhaustive process covers seismic and environmental concerns, and must be paid for by the buyer.
“If there’s a fairly small problem, we might ignore it altogether. If there’s a humongous problem, we might cancel the contract and walk away. If there’s a medium problem, we’ll have a discussion with the seller and figure out a solution,” said Stuart Klein, the coordinator of the JCF and JCC’s bid team.
The site must be checked for toxic materials, both onsite and in the groundwater that flows beneath. Seismically, the 250,000-square-foot building on the site was last retrofitted in 1988, shortly after Sun bought the site from Ford Aerospace. Seismic and toxic codes may be tougher for the JCF-JCC partnership to meet than for Sun, because it will be used as a community center, with children on the campus.
The JCF-JCC must also obtain a conditional-use permit from the city of Palo Alto, which Klein figures may take around six months.