Back in March, Gary Cohn told j. that he figured the last chance for local groups to keep Camp Swig from being sold was at hand.
Well, come September, this may be the local groups’ last last chance.
Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan of Congregation Emanu-El, a staffer at the camp in his youth, has mounted a last-ditch effort to rally local “investors” to purchase the former youth camp from the Union of Reform Judaism, which put it up for sale at the beginning of August.
Along with locals such as Emanu-El Executive Director Cohn and Jyl Jurman, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley (who can see the hills that house the camp from her office window), Wolf-Prusan has formed the Northern California Jewish Retreat Center Committee in hopes of acquiring the 185-acre Saratoga site.
There are complications, however: The group hasn’t come close to pooling the money necessary to buy the camp. In fact, they don’t know exactly how much it will cost. And, finally, they don’t know what to do with the land if they even get it.
“Look, when the ship is sinking, the first thing you do is plug the holes. Then you can discuss where you want to sail,” said Wolf-Prusan.
Some in the group wish to “open up a retreat center,” he said, “while other people have plans to rejuvenate a teen camp.”
Rabbi Daniel Freelander, the vice president of the URJ overseeing all youth programs, camping and education, said the Camp Swig site — unused the past four years — is currently being evaluated by engineers and county officials to determine what the land could be zoned for in addition to a youth camp.
“That has a huge effect on what we’ll do. We can’t set a price right now,” he said of Swig, which sits directly atop the San Andreas Fault and may not be suitable for housing.
He expects to potentially have a sale price established “after Rosh Hashanah” in mid-month. Wolf-Prusan estimated his group may need to raise anywhere from $3 million to $10 million.
The local group’s efforts to buy the site come after several years of partnering with the URJ to raise funds to renovate and reopen the camp, which was shut down largely because of its dilapidated conditions.
The URJ’s price tag for that upgrade was $30 million; $12 million would retrofit camp structures with $8 million more needed to construct a conference center and the remaining $10 million would establish an endowment fund. When the Cohn-led group could come up with only about $6.5 million over several years, the URJ moved in March to put the camp up for sale.
Freelander said he’s gotten several inquiries from potential buyers other than Wolf-Prusan’s group, though he’d love to sell the land to people who will run a Jewish camp on the site. But, the bottom line dictates that he sell it to the highest bidder, as all proceeds will be funneled into the URJ’s Western youth camping endeavors. (With Camp Swig out of commission for the past four years, its load has been picked up by Santa Rosa’s Camp Newman and Seattle’s new Camp Kalsman.)
When asked if the Bay Area group is a serous bidder, Freelander answered, “Emotionally, they’re very serious and committed. Whether they have the [financial] backing, they’re working very hard and I wish them well.”
Wolf-Prusan said he’s still on the hunt for “investors,” be it two or 15 or more. And he realized that his last last chance isn’t a very good one.
“We are at a disadvantage. This all could be for gornished [nothing]. The URJ has a mission and that’s to get as much for this property as it can,” he said.
“Sure, it’s to their great advantage to sell to a Jewish group. But they’re under no direction to do this. And I respect that.”