College of the Desert to show off West Campus signage tomorrow

The College of the Desert's plans for a big campus are continuing. There's the unveiling of the campus logo tomorrow. Here is the announcement from the college: "College of the Desert will unveil the signage of the new West Valley Campus, on the northwest corner of Tramview Road and North Indian Canyon Drive. It will take place on Wednesday, May 4 at 11:30 a.m. The unveiling will be attended by COD officials and VIP’s along with local dignitaries. The event and parking will be held at the James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center, 480 Tramview Road, Palm Springs. Besides educational programs, the West Valley Campus will feature commercially-operated facilities for research development, business incubation of clean technologies and a 60-acre 'GreenPark' site where energy will be generated by a Southern California Edison through photovoltaic solar systems. 'GreenPark' could have the potential to generate energy for 5,200 homes and provide a revenue stream for COD. The campus will create its own energy and be a showcase for 'Green Technology' in terms of infrastructure and job training programs as the goal of a joint initiative with the cities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs. The uniquely self-contained and sustainable campus will be integrated with existing facilities on a site at the northwest corner of Indian Canyon Drive and Tramview Road in Palm Springs and will serve the entire western valley. The James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center already occupies a portion of the site. The first phase of the campus would cost about $40 million and be operational by the 2014/15 academic year, according to current estimates. The proposed West Valley Campus will be designed and constructed in accordance with COD’s recently-adopted Policy on Sustainability Stewardship and move beyond simply living within available resources to a strategy of designing a holistic operating campus that is compatible with, and learns from, our desert ecology. College officials recently announced the selection of the design team for the 119-acre campus. The new campus is being developed with proceeds from bond sales authorized when voters approved Measure B by a huge margin in 2004. Measure B is a $346.5 million bond issue that included a mandate to acquire sites and construct satellite campuses to serve the west and east portions of the Coachella Valley." Miss Penny Lane says: Welcome, new neighbor.