Construction starts at UC Davis' West Village

DAVIS
August 10, 2009 12:02pm

A new $280 million community at the University of California, Davis is breaking ground in more ways than one, thanks to an almost $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

The planners for West Village, now under construction just west of the Davis campus by first-phase developer West Village Community Partnership LCC, are now analyzing how to combine energy-saving measures with a sophisticated "smart grid" or network for generating, storing and distributing energy.

The goal of the project is to create a great place to live and a "zero net energy" community with aggressive energy efficiency measures and on-site renewable resources to meet the community's annual energy demand.

The $1,994,322 grant, made through the commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program, will help the university to analyze and design energy technologies and the smart grid that will integrate them.

The start of construction marks a milestone, says UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, who is retiring Aug. 16 after 15 years as chancellor. Planning for West Village began in the 1990s as a way to provide affordable home ownership opportunities for faculty and staff and additional housing for students.

About 200 acres in all, the privately funded development is located on campus land west of Highway 113 and south of Russell Boulevard. With a village square at its heart, the community will include affordable homes for faculty and staff and apartment-style housing for students.

In addition, the development will offer up to 45,000 square feet of commercial space and generous green space with bicycle and pedestrian paths connecting to the campus. Features will include a site for the

Davis Center of Sacramento City College in the Los Rios Community College District -- the first community college center on a UC campus -- and sites for the Davis Joint Unified School District and a small day care or preschool facility.

West Village will be built in two phases. When completed, it will provide housing for an estimated 4,350 people: 475 new homes for faculty and staff and housing for 3,000 students.

The developer has broken ground on the first 130-acre phase and plans to start building the village square and apartments for 600 students in spring 2010 for occupancy in fall 2011.