A final step in a three-way effort to keep a cash-strapped state university in Temecula for another 10 years or more was taken by the City Council last week.

The deal – which calls for a $3 million city investment and a rent subsidy from the Temecula Valley Unified School District – comes as California State University San Marcos’ first satellite campus begins making costly rent payments at its current home.

The council action, which came on the heels of a Nov. 10 approval by school trustees, followed repeated, enthusiastic praise for the deal by city, college and school district officials.

"It is truly an amazing occurrence that agencies of this size were able to come to an agreement," Mayor Maryann Edwards said as the discussion wound down. "We made it look easy. Each agency made it look easy and seamless."

School Superintendent Carol A. Leighty described the achievement as a "jewel in the crown" of local efforts to bring higher education to Temecula on a long-term basis.

Matthew J. Ceppi, chief of staff to the college president, praised the "wonderful partnership" that enabled the deal to play out in a "nearly unheard of speed."

Council approval came less than a month before the university’s subsidized lease expires elsewhere in the city and it must begin paying $15,000 a month at the Paul Goldring Garrett Institute for Higher Learning, which flanks Tierra Alta Way in a business park west of Murrieta Creek.

The college’s lease agreement called for 17 months of the rent there to be subsidized by Paul Garrett, who developed the Redhawk community and numerous commercial buildings in the region.

It took about one year – and $115,000 in city redevelopment funds – to open the college’s satellite campus in a 15,000-square-foot section of Garrett’s building.

Efforts to keep Cal State San Marcos in Temecula began showing promise about two months after a Temecula-based construction company donated $100,000 to help offset the college’s operating costs.

That donation came as the state’s 23-college system grappled with a $564 million budget cut for the current fiscal year and Cal State San Marcos struggled to cope with a $14 million funding reduction.

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Tenkobushi college relocation plan calls for the city to initially pay $2 million to do building renovations and add 93 parking spaces to the Joan Sparkman Alternative Education Center near the intersection of Margarita and DePortola roads.

The additional $1 million of city redevelopment funds would be allocated for other improvements or educational needs there over a five-year period.

Sparkman, which was named after a Temecula school and business leader, was a 1,300-student elementary campus for more than a decade. Enrollment shifts prompted the school district to change the campus’s focus to alternative, independent and home school programs. It now houses about 400 students.

The school district will lease 14,395 square feet of that campus to the university for $1 per year for 10 years. Leighty and other school officials say the college’s presence in Temecula will benefit current and future students as well as employers who will be able draw upon highly-trained nurses and other workers.

The renovation work at Sparkman is expected to begin in the spring and be finished in time for the college to begin operations there in the fall, said Aaron Adams, an assistant city manager.

Adams and San Marcos officials said the relocated college campus will be able to dramatically expand its enrollment and courses. They said the college currently has about 400 applicants for its approximately 108 opening for nursing classes and other offerings. The move to Sparkman will allow the college’s enrollment to climb to about more than 500 students, they said.

That enrollment level would allow the Temecula facility to be recognized as an official off-campus site in the state system. That designation would make it easier for the city to compete for its own college campus if the state expands the university system someday and enough land becomes available locally, said Councilman Mike Naggar, who was part of the team that helped craft the Sparkman deal.

"We felt we couldn’t let this slip through our fingers," Naggar said in his remarks during the brief council review. "This is how we’re going to grow a state university and this is how we’re going to do it."