In the South Bay, a new chapter of higher education takes shape

Conceptual rendering (City of Chula Vista)

For most of its history, Otay Ranch was once nothing more than a vast expanse of pastures. Since the early 2000s, however, it has grown into a booming master-planned community of more than 50,000. The area combines traditional single-family home suburbs with mixed-use apartments and townhomes, and is continuing to grow even after over two decades of development. The city’s latest endeavor is to build a four-year university campus in Otay Ranch—the first public university in the South Bay, and the first “hybrid campus” in California.

Conceptual rendering of full site (City of Chula Vista)

The rationale for this project is quite straightforward: the South Bay is critically underserved by higher education. Nearly 40% of South County residents seek a bachelor’s degree, compared to an average of 27% in the rest of San Diego County. Building a university in the region will help increase the number of South Bay residents with a bachelor's degree and valuable skills for employment in the region.

Otay Ranch General Development Plan (City of Chula Vista, detail)

Located south of the existing Millenia development, a 383-acre site was reserved strictly for the university in October 1993 by the Otay Ranch General Development Plan. The university would be part of a 553-acre “University-Innovation District” which would not only contain the campus but also a regional technology park aiming to bring more jobs to the South Bay. The first 140 acres of land were acquired in 2001, with more land gradually being acquired for the new university between 2008 and 2014. Despite this progress, the path forward was murky, clouded with a lack of support from state university systems (who argued that it wasn’t the right time to build another campus) as well as the risk of the area being redeveloped for affordable housing under California’s Surplus Land Act. In spite of these setbacks, local policies and decisions helped pave the way for the new university. The city acquired the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center (now the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center) in 2017 with the hopes that it could be integrated into the new campus, the University Subcommittee was founded to guide the area plan in 2018, and State Assembly bill AB129 exempted the university site from the Surplus Land Act in 2023. This year, Assembly bill AB662 established the South County Higher Education Task Force with the goal of assessing the logistics of setting up a university in the South Bay. The task force is expected to meet in July 2026 and is due to report its findings by July 2027.

Millenia Library (Benji Comiskey / BuildSD)

Phase I of the project includes the brand new Millenia Library, a 168,000-square-foot building in the Millenia development (just north of the proposed university site) serving as the city’s first new library since 1995 and as a South Bay “home base” for the SDSU School of Nursing and SDSU Global Campus. Both programs are currently slated to occupy a space of more than 7,000 square feet on the building’s lower level and are intended to kickstart university programs in the region before the campus itself is built. According to the City of Chula Vista, other resources offered will include meeting and community spaces, a gallery space, a passport office and a small business incubator. The Millenia Library is expected to be complete in summer 2026.

University-Innovation District Sectional Planning Area Site Utilization Plan (City of Chula Vista)

The University-Innovation District itself is planned to house the 383-acre campus—which will serve more than 20,000 students and 6,000 faculty members—alongside 2 million square feet of research and technology space expected to bring 8,000 new jobs, 1.6 million square feet dedicated to building approximately 2,000 units of on-site student housing, an additional 2 million square feet of market-rate residential housing, and 160 acres of open space preserve within the adjacent Otay River Valley. Planned transit connections would make the campus accessible via existing Rapid route 225 to downtown San Diego and the Otay Mesa international border.

As state university systems were originally wary of hosting a university in Chula Vista, the city is instead taking a different approach; rather than having just a single school own and operate the campus, Chula Vista is instead creating a city-owned multi-institutional campus where multiple universities and schools across the region operate together on campus, the first of its kind in California. This model took inspiration from the Auraria Campus in Denver, serving as the combined home of the University of Colorado Denver, Community College of Denver and the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Instead of serving as the main campus of new schools, the Chula Vista campus is likely to function as a satellite of other local universities and colleges across the San Diego region. While these universities have historically operated separately, the task force will help facilitate cooperation between the schools and university systems in order to successfully implement the multi-institutional model at Chula Vista University.

UniverCity Groundbreaking (City of Chula Vista)

Even after numerous roadblocks and near-cancellations, Chula Vista has remained committed to building the South Bay’s first public university, and with recent developments in both Sacramento and here in San Diego County, the dream of a Chula Vista University is closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Sources:\ Sectional Planning Area Plan\ City of Chula Vista - University\ Chula Vista University initiative website\ Chula Vista's University-Innovation District History\ Assemblymember David Alvarez - State of Higher Education address\ City of Chula Vista - “City Celebrates Construction"\ City of Chula Vista - “City, SDSU Deal Points Approved”\ Assemblymember David Alvarez - “Legislation to Advance the Chula Vista University Unanimously Passes Out of the Assembly”\ KPBS - “Is Chula Vista’s dream of a public university finally coming into focus?”\ CBS8 - “Chula Vista makes major progress to build a four-year public university”\ City of Chula Vista - Planning a Thriving Ecosystem of Higher Education in South County