UC Santa Cruz establishing Scotts Valley Center

I am excited to announce that UC Santa Cruz will be establishing a center in Scotts Valley to support 500 staff from three divisions: Business and Administrative Services, Information Technology Services, and University Relations. We will be calling it the UC Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley Center.

UC Santa Cruz has signed a 20-year lease for two three-floor modules at the Enterprise Technology Centre in Scotts Valley. As you may recall, the campus announced in early 2015 that it was exploring this idea.

Though the timeline for the move has not yet been established, we hope to complete the relocations by the end of this year.

No doubt this news is generating a lot of questions, and we're already trying to provide answers to commonly asked questions. Additionally, you can visit news.ucsc.edu/scottsvalley to learn more about the new Scotts Valley Center. I know the vice chancellors of each division are working to make sure the move and its timing are as minimally disruptive as possible, though moves like this are always challenging in some ways.

A committee of staff members from all three divisions continues to meet weekly to help facilitate the process, make sure questions are being answered and problems are being solved.

Additionally, a transportation survey will be sent out in the coming weeks to employees within the three divisions.

This will be a big change for the campus, and it’s one I’m convinced will be worth the near-term interruption. Not only will this move create more academic and research-oriented space at 2300 Delaware Ave., but there are tangible benefits to housing staff from these three divisions together. The lease is a good deal for our campus. In addition to consolidating several leases, there will be opportunities for increased collaboration resulting from having a critical mass of employees together, rather than spread across four off-campus locations.