After years of planning, Clark President Bob Knight will unveil the final plan for the North
County satellite campus during his annual State of the College Address in January.
The Clark College at Boschma Farms campus, near Interstate 5 and State Route 501 in Ridgefield, is projected to open in Fall 2021. The campus will originally consist of one
70,000-square-foot building, around the size of the new STEM building and a 350-space parking structure, according to Vice President of Instruction Tim Cook.
Cook said he expects the first building to house advanced manufacturing, general education
classrooms, study areas and administrative offices. The building will be able to accommodate upwards of 1,500 students and approximately 50 faculty and staff.
Vice President of Administrative Services Bob Williamson said the Board of Trustees and officials from the Clark College Foundation will likely decide on a final plan in December. The decision-makers will consider suggestions from students, faculty and members of the
Ridgefield community at a series of public forums held by Clark officials and representatives of the Mackay Sposito consulting team in October.
“It is not often that you’re given a blank piece of paper to design the college of your dreams,” Williamson said.
Mackay Sposito Vice President of Design Bryan Cole, who presented the working plan at each of the three forums, said the Ridgefield campus master plan must be flexible, “but at
the same time establish a backbone and vision for the campus.”
According to Cole’s presentations, the initial building will be the first of five, arranged in one of three site-development patterns: clustered, courtyard or dispersed. The clustered layout mirrors Mt. Hood Community College, while the courtyard and dispersed models
mirror Clark’s main campus and South Puget Sound Community College.
At the last forum in Battle Ground, Cole also presented a hybrid version of all three patterns, based on feedback from the preceding forums. All possible layouts offer common
areas with views of Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier, according to Cole.
Williamson said pre-design, design and construction will cost the college $5.2 million.
The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges approved Clark’s budget request and
forwarded it to the state legislature, which convenes in January.
The Boschma Farms site gets its name from the previous owners, former dairy farmers Hank and Bernice Boschma, who sold the land to the Clark College Foundation
for around $5.5 million in 2014. The elderly couple, who emigrated from Holland to Ridgefield and took their American citizenship tests at Clark, also donated $3.1 million in land as part of the deal, a total of 59.24 acres.
“They epitomize the American dream,” Clark President Knight said. According to Williamson, predesign and design of the first building begins in July 2017 and construction
start in July 2019.
