July 15, 1994 Contact: Jim Burns (408/459-2495)

UC REGENTS APPROVE $2.4 MILLION SALE OF REDWOOD PARCEL TO SAVE-THE-REDWOODS LEAGUE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO--The University of California Board of Regents today (Friday, July 15) approved the sale for $2.4 million of a 410- acre redwood parcel to Save-the Redwoods League. The sale of the parcel, which contains some old-growth redwoods, ensures that the property will be available for public use.

The land, called the "Miller property," is located on Kings Creek Road, three miles north of Boulder Creek in Santa Cruz County. Most of the proceeds from the sale will go to the UC Santa Cruz campus to establish an endowment fund for financial aid.

Proceeds from the sale will be allocated as follows:

-- $2.1 million will go to UCSC to fund undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.

-- A total of $300,000 will be used to establish or enhance scholarships at UC Berkeley and UCSC in the names of Horace Marden Albright, who was a leading conservationist and former director of the National Park Service, and to establish two undergraduate scholarships for students of environmental studies at UCSC in the names of Robert Gordon Sproul, former president of the university, and Newton B. Drury, former director of the National Park Service and former secretary of the Save-the-Redwoods League.

UCSC Chancellor Karl S. Pister expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the negotiations. "This sale will preserve the site for the public, and the proceeds will help preserve access to the university by enriching our financial aid endowment," said Pister. "This is the type of outcome the campus had sought from the beginning."

In May, the university took the unusual step of rejecting all bids for the property in order to pursue discussions with potential buyers who were interested in preserving the property as open space. Announcement of the final sale marks the end of a process that began in February 1993 after the UCSC campus determined that the property was surplus and requested that it be sold.

Peltason rejected the bids in May, saying that he felt doing so was in the best interests of the university and the state of California. The three bidders were: Eel River Saw Mills, Inc., at $2,380,000; Roger Burch, a Santa Cruz saw mill owner at $2,332,000; and the Save-the-Redwoods League at $2,100,000. The university had a legal obligation to sell the property to the highest bidder or reject all bids.

About half of the property was deeded to the University of California by Adolph C. Miller and Mary Sprague Miller in 1942, with the remainder purchased by the university in 1952. It has been held for campus use and contains some groves of old-growth redwoods on approximately 38 acres. The balance of the property consists of second-growth redwood, Douglas fir, hardwoods, meadows, and grasslands. A creek runs through the property year- round.

The university operated a campground on the property from 1967 through 1974. The campground, which operated at a deficit to UCSC, was closed following extensive storm damage.

In 1991 and 1992, the UCSC campus evaluated all potential uses of the site for academic or administrative purposes and determined that there were no feasible campus uses. Maintenance costs and liability concerns were an insupportable burden on the campus, and the property was subsequently declared surplus. In February 1993, the campus requested that the property be sold.

Because of the attributes of the property and the strong local interest in preserving the land in its present form, the university focused its first sale efforts on identifying a buyer who would preserve the property for public use.

Before soliciting private bids, the university and the UCSC campus from March through May of 1993 invited eighteen government and nonprofit entities, and representatives of such entities, to purchase the property for public use.

Despite the university's efforts, all prebid sale discussions ended without offers by the fall of 1993, except discussions with Santa Cruz County. Those discussions were extended until December 1993, when the county indicated that it could not acquire the property. Competitive sealed-bid documents were subsequently prepared, and the property was offered for a minimum bid of $2 million beginning in March 1994.

In offering the property by competitive bid, the university retained a conservation easement on seventeen acres to preserve in its entirety the most significant and accessible grove of old-growth trees on the property. In addition, state regulations and other factors would have limited the harvest of the old-growth trees outside of the easement area.

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