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Cal Poly considers building hotel with conference center, senior housing

August 18, 2026

By KAREN VELIE

Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo is considering building a hotel with a conference center, senior housing and student housing on more than 40 acres of lemon groves and agricultural fields along Highland Drive.

Proponents of the project say it will create a revenue stream and provide additional student and faculty housing. Revenue estimates range from $15 million to $40 million a year.

Critics argue the building site is prime agriculture land and part of Cal Poly’s learn by doing program.

A petition asking Cal Poly administrators to abandon the proposed project has garnered 1,752 signatures.

“We have one clear demand for the Cal Poly SLO administration: Withdraw the current West Campus development proposal and honor your previous commitment from the 2020 Master Plan to exclude the 250 acres of prime farmland (class one soils) on the campus from any future development,” according to the petition.

 


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10 Comments

There is zero chance that CP will “create a revenue stream” from this endeavor. The only way government can compete with the private sector is by hiding their major expenses. Common examples of this are insurance, rent, and taxes.

 

They almost certainly self-insure. They certainly don’t buy commercial insurance specifically for this project and include the cost as an expense. I am certain they do not include the cost of the land and building depreciation when calculating their “revenue stream”. They don’t pay any property, income, or transient occupancy taxes like their private sector competitors do. There is absolutely nothing that the government can operate more economically than the private sector when all costs and realistic revenue are completely and fairly accounted for. There is no “revenue stream”!

 

There are so many things wrong with this plan and its explanation that there has got to be something more behind it. One possibility that occurs to me is that it is a playground for their financial supporters when they are in town. Senior housing? Only if subsidized to get elderly people to subject themselves to a university dorm so that they could offer a degree in geriatric studies. I hope there will be a McDonald’s so that their geriatric study students can learn a trade.


3

Maybe there’s something more behind it might be taking the heat off of the Cal Poly employee that is the mayor of this town and the fact that she lied straight out and then started backpedaling when she got called on it. Cal Poly needs her and her counsel which are all connected to Cal Poly in the positions that they are in.


0

Armstrong needs to:



  • Honor the agreement in the Master Plan 2035 that exempts this land from development.

  • Stop ignoring student resolution #25-07 that formally opposed any development on ag lands.

  • The proposed “land swap” is insulting. Swapping Prime productive farmland for land that is only suitable for grazing is not an option. We know the difference and we will not be misled.

  • Non-academic facilities like a hotel, senior living and retail space do not preserve or enhance education for any students. So who exactly would benefit from this?


The best of the best is Class 1 or Prime farmland and has the strongest state and local agency planning protections.  Meaning, building on such soil – a rare, non-renewable and widely beneficial resource – is guarded against and in some cases prohibited.  There are restrictions in place to protect these resources, such as:



Under CEQA, converting Prime farmland to non-agricultural uses triggers rigorous environmental review, and local agencies are intensely discouraged or legally challenged if they approve projects that destroy Prime farmland without major overriding public benefits and mandatory mitigation.

At Cal Poly, the Prime farmland designation is amplified by the fact that these fields are our laboratories for hands-on, learn-by-doing teaching, just as a chemistry lab, engineering lab, design studio, or theater are. All are cornerstones of a polytechnic university and Cal Poly’s learn-by-doing motto.

Would Cal Poly’s administration walk into a chemistry lab and say, hey, let’s turn this into a Starbuck’s for the town folk?  No, that would be ridiculous and obviously antithetical to Cal Poly’s mission.

Also, teaching labs at California State Universities are officially categorized and designated by the state and the California State University system as “formal instructional and capacity space”. The state tracks physical facilities using formal space standards originally tied to the Coordinating Council for Higher Education, separating academic space into specific designations like lecture rooms, faculty offices, and teaching laboratories. Further, teaching laboratories are bound by specific state-level utilization formulas (measuring weekly student contact hours and station occupancy) to justify capital outlay and state funding. 


4

Senior citizens and college age students living together go as well as oil and water. This is what I expect from our education system today though, nothing but idiocracy and pronouns. If you want to actually learn something useful educators will be happy to throw you a Youtube link in between their doom scrolling.


14

Babylon Bee could do so much with this.


13

This would be an abomination. Cal Poly needs to reign in development. The student housing towers going up the hill was/is bad enough.


16

This is frustrating. In March at a City Council meeting Cal Poly administration claimed they had no plans to build a Greek Row on campus to relieve the neighborhoods from their out of control extremely disturbing activities. They acted like they had no space for that. Then we see this plan? I hope the students are able to stop this dumb idea. They certainly don’t need a hotel on campus competing with the many hotels in the city. Also, why a senior living project? That makes no sense to build that on university property! Sounds like this is all about money and no common sense, particularly when building over prime ag land for this baloney.


41

No More… you are big enough Cal Poly….


48

The administration tends to forget that that citrus grove is a classroom, many years of educating students on citrus production. I have a better suggestion if you have to have a conference center build it downwind from the swine unit.


18

Yes! Build a huge hotel and conference center….downwind from the cattle pens and dairy farm!


I thought Cal Poly people were supposed to be smart?


17