JCC without walls — yet:

Palo Alto head helping build campus from ground up

Imagine inhabiting your newly renovated, state-of-the-art office — part of a $17 million upgrade — for only four months. Then, your next position has you moving into a temporary trailer.

That’s what Alan Sataloff did last summer to become the CEO of the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto.

Sataloff has spent his entire career working for JCCs around the country and has taken part in several renovation projects. Overseeing the building of what will be part of the Campus for Jewish Life was, quite simply, an offer too good to refuse.

“If this was just another renovation project, I wouldn’t have considered it. It wouldn’t have been exciting,” Sataloff said during a recent interview in his trailer/office at the JCC’s current home in Palo Alto. “This was really about building capacity. It’s about building Jewish community.”

Right now, the campus building plans are being drawn up, down to the last detail.

“Developing a campus from the ground up is huge,” said Sataloff, who is involved in every decision — from what the arts facilities will look like, to how many toilets will be in each bathroom.

Construction will begin in fall 2006 and take two years to complete. Sataloff hopes the new center, as well as the senior residences that will be part of the campus, will be open for use in 2008.

While Sataloff is still getting to know all the key players in the South Bay community — he compared himself to an actor walking on stage where everyone else already has a role — he said he spends most of his time fund-raising, helping plan the facility and increasing the programs already in existence. All of which he finds quite exciting.

“This center is really building a whole new culture and campus facility. And to be part of that is so much different than just a renovation,” he said. “It’s a chance to have such a huge impact on the Jewish community. This can only happen once in your lifetime.”

Sataloff began in the JCC system as a physical education teacher.

“There’s something to be said for starting at the bottom and working your way up,” he said. “It’s given me a lot of institutional knowledge.” He believes that fitness and athletics programs are a crucial component of any JCC, and that understanding current trends in fitness is invaluable to any JCC staffer.

A native New Yorker, Sataloff worked at JCCs in Houston, West Orange, N.J., Seattle and Memphis before overseeing the renovation in Richmond, Va., his last job. It was in New Jersey that he first got involved in a renovation, while in Richmond he learned how to operate in a building that was constantly undergoing construction.

“It was quite challenging, to say the least,” he said. “You’d never know if you’d have your gas or water or electricity or phones that day.”

The 48-year-old Sataloff is married, with two young-adult children. Running into him on the temporary grounds, one might mistake him for an athletics instructor. He and his wife enjoy hiking, biking and other outdoor physical activities, doing some of each every day.

“We’re very much outdoors people, so living here really fits us. But we moved here because of the project, not just because it was California,” he said. His wife, Susan, who has spent most of her career in Jewish homes for the elderly, is working in adult programs at the Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center of Silicon Valley.

Sataloff was not surprised with the results of a recent population survey that indicated there are as many Jews in the South Bay as in San Francisco. And now, the challenge for him is attracting all those Jews to the new JCC.

“The JCC is a not an insular agency. It’s a center that works with other agencies to better the community, not to only better the facility or the campus. I believe our role is to work with synagogues and all the agencies and schools to really make this area a better place for the Jewish community.”

Sataloff said working at a JCC is great for people like him, who enjoy problem-solving and variety. He never knows what awaits him each day.

He emphasized that the current, temporary site is fully operational, with 150 kids in the preschool and another 150 in day camp this summer. “Just because we don’t have a building doesn’t mean we can’t run programs,” he said. “Right now we’re a JCC in many respects without walls.”

Next year, the JCC will begin offering the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, with adult-education courses in Jewish topics offered by Hebrew University at sites around the country.

A new sports and recreation director is starting to developing youth sports leagues. And those are only two programs of many.

“The goal is really to build these programs today, so that when we move in, we’ll be doing so with things already happening. We don’t want to move into an empty shell, and then have programs. The goal is to start having a vibrant Jewish community today and then move the programs right in.”