$65 million Jewish campus breaks ground in Foster City
Friday, December 13, 2002 | byJOE ESKENAZI
After decades of hoping, and years of negotiations, ground was symbolically broken Sunday in Foster City for a huge Jewish campus to serve the north Peninsula and beyond.
"It took Moses 40 years to lead the Jews through the desert, so for us, seven years is not so bad," said Peninsula JCC Executive Director Judy Edelson with a laugh.
The gargantuan dirt plot where Edelson and others posed holding bronze-colored shovels in front of a bulldozer ought to look very different a year from now.
By then, the campus' $47 million phase one project should be complete. A complex of large, interconnected structures will stand where there is now a long, narrow strip of bare soil nearly long enough to land one of the many jumbo jets flying low overhead on their way to the airport.
Scheduled to be up and running by fall 2003 are the Peninsula Jewish Community Center's main building; a health, fitness and aquatic center; a permanent home for the Jewish Day School of the North Peninsula; and PJCC early childhood and youth and teen centers.
The S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children's Services and S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation will also operate on-site.
Of the necessary $47 million for the project's first phase, $40 million has already been raised. Lorry Lokey, the founder of Business Wire, has pledged $11 million of that.
The PJCC is the latest of several Bay Area Jewish community centers to undergo a massive upgrade. The JCC of San Francisco aims to open its new home on its former site by next year, while Palo Alto's Albert L. Schultz JCC officially purchased Sun Microsystems' former corporate campus over the summer and will be housed at a temporary site for at least the next five years.
Hundreds of Jews from the north Peninsula and beyond, and Peninsula government officials, attended the groundbreaking ceremonies, with dozens of high-energy children focused on more pressing matters: soccer matches and word-of-mouth updates of the 49ers-Cowboys game.
Occasionally, an errant soccer ball would roll to the feet of a group of adults, and a rabbi wearing wingtip shoes, a politician or a parent would give it his best boot back.
Campus officials predict the 12-acre complex will draw Jews—and non-Jews—from as far away as South San Francisco, Redwood City, Fremont or Hayward.
"We've had inquiries from people in the Hayward area and other East Bay communities, and from people who work here and don't have access to Jewish community facilities," said Bobby Lent, a North Peninsula Jewish Campus board member.
"People from Half Moon Bay have told us that because of Highway 92 this is an easy place to get to. On some occasions, people will come from all over the Bay Area. When we call this the central address of the Jewish community, we really mean it's the central address of the Jewish community."
Currently, 30,000 people reside in Foster City, with roughly 15,000 more commuting in for work. Lent said he has received a good number of inquiries from commuters who would utilize the campus before or after work.
JCC and day-school leaders said they couldn't think of a downside to their impending move to the campus.
Jewish Day School of the North Peninsula will land its first permanent home in its 17-year existence, and will be able to expand its enrollment and programming in larger and more modern classrooms than in its adjacent Foster City temporary home of the last four years.
The PJCC, located in Belmont for the past 40 years, will leave a home it has sorely outgrown. Edelson predicts the JCC's membership will boom from its current 1,000 family units to more than 4,000 within several years.
Additionally, the JFCS will run adult and senior programs, and the JCF will serve as a conduit to the rest of the Jewish community, bringing events and organizations to the campus.
Foster City officials are enthusiastic about the Jewish campus as well, as it fills in a large chunk of their Civic Center Master Plan.
In a huge facelift involving 36 acres of downtown real estate, the city has erected, among other facilities, a new civic center, a police station, a fire station, a new city hall, a park, a library, a senior center and a community building.
The city had earmarked the site of the future Jewish campus site for a high school, but Foster City's electorate voted down the notion several times. So Richard Marks, the city's community development director, sought a private nonprofit to develop the land and build structures that would provide some of the same benefits to the community as a public high school.
The campus' two pools will be the first public pools in the city. Foster City officials will also utilize campus meeting space and area-wide cultural events will be held in the campus' larger indoor spaces.
"I never thought I'd be associated with such a grand plan," said Foster City Mayor Russ Harter. "Everyone benefits. It's a plus-plus."
The city-owned land is leased to the campus for 55 years, the longest time period allowed by state law. Annual rent is around $125,000, plus an additional $125,000 or so of "in kind" fees via 10 percent JCC membership discounts for Foster City residents.
According to Marks, the land has a value of $1 million an acre. Calculating the market value rental of 8 percent of the land's value yearly, the city could theoretically charge nearly $1 million a year for the 12-acre parcel, he said.
Peninsula native Rabbi Evan Goodman said the campus will provide Jews young and old with far more options on how to be Jewishly involved.
"This gives us an added dimension. When I grew up, I was involved in synagogues and looking for other places to connect Jewishly," said Goodman, spiritual leader of San Francisco's Congregation Beth Israel-Judea.
"The community campus will bring together all different Jewish people from different ages, perspectives and varieties of Judaism."
The campus will be a place to "educate and recreate," noted Sam Salkin, CEO of the S.F.-based JCF.
"This will be a place where you can take care of all your needs, from getting a book from the library to taking a course in Jewish culture. It will be a place where people come to learn, to study, to be cared for."
In the $6 million to $8 million second phase, a 400-seat auditorium is scheduled to be built by 2008. And in the $8 million third phase, a permanent early-childhood education center will be competed by 2015.
With anticipated increases in construction costs, the project's total price tag is hovering at $65 million. The cost had been much higher, said Salkin, but the project was scaled back to a more realistic total.
Reflecting on the seven-odd years of negotiations leading up to Sunday's groundbreaking, campus board member Ron Wornick noted, "You have to be a bit naive when you start these processes. If you suspected it might take seven or eight years, then you might not start."
While getting the Jewish community organizations involved, negotiating terms with Foster City and raising $40 million took time, Wornick says it was worth the wait.
"Our doors are open to the community. We want people to know what we're doing here and join us."