The article below originally appeared on CoastsideNews.com and is being reprinted with permission.
College of San Mateo returns to the coast
College trustee Lisa Petrides, CSM President Manuel Alejandro Pérez, Chancellor Melissa Moreno, Mayor Joaquin Jimenez and Joe Cotchett cut the ribbon on the new CSM Coastside. Photo by Peter Tokofsky/Coastside News.
More than a decade after the College of San Mateo closed its Coastside branch in Shoreline Station, a new Coastside college facility opened this week in the just-completed building at 650 Mill St.
“We were here 10 years ago and we had an economic crisis and had to go back over the hill,” college trustee Lisa Petrides told a gathering of college officials, students and local leaders at a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week. “But now we are here to stay.”
Manuel Alejandro Pérez, president of the College of San Mateo, said at the ceremony that the occasion represents “much more than just the opening of a new building; it is about opening doors to brighter futures and new beginnings for all.”
The new College of San Mateo Coastside at the corner of Purissima and Mill Streets includes a classroom and a large multipurpose space in a building that recalls the façade of the Occidental Hotel that once stood a block away.
Joe Cotchett, developer and owner of the new building, joked that the opening of the facility “is much bigger than the big pumpkins.”
Building developer Joe Cotchett addresses the audience at the opening of the new college facility. Photo by Peter Tokofsky/Coastside News.
Speaker after speaker at the event thanked Cotchett for a vision of the development that includes the college and, more generally, his commitment to the Coastside community.
“We are bringing education into the community where transportation fails us,” Melissa Moreno, chancellor of the college district that includes three main campuses in the hills of San Mateo County, said. “This new space represents our important priority to bring college to the people.”
Other speakers, including Half Moon Bay Mayor Joaquin Jimenez and Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, executive director of Ayudando Latinos a Soñar, also emphasized that the new facility would provide educational and career opportunities that are currently out of reach for Coastside residents. “Public transportation is not available,” Jimenez said when explaining why a space on the Coastside will make college more accessible.
“This facility is a response—it is one way that College of San Mateo commits to this long-time relationship with the city of Half Moon Bay to ensure that every person, every family, and every dream on the Coastside can thrive and bloom,” Perez said.
Petrides said the level of commitment and the engaged planning process that included the community and the college trustees will ensure that the new facility does not end up like the previous one.
According the college website, the new campus will focus on serving Latinx, Chinese, and migrant farmworker populations. A schedule of classes that will be offered at the Coastside facility will be available in the next few weeks, with classes beginning in January.