Santa Rosa Junior College has narrowed down the potential locations for a new culinary arts institute, once planned to be the cornerstone of a proposed Railroad Square food-and-wine center, to three sites at its Santa Rosa campus.
The sites include an L-shaped parcel on Mendocino Avenue that was a Patio World store, college-owned land on Elliott Avenue and an SRJC parking lot on Armory Drive.
SRJC Board President Bob Burdo said Friday the final decision will be made within the next few weeks.
SRJC had planned to put the culinary school in the food and wine center that is proposed for Railroad Square and moved five years into a temporary location in the Brickyard center downtown.
But the junior college is unsure when the Railroad Square center will be built and doesn't want to remain any longer in temporary quarters.
"We have to be on a certain time frame, we cannot be waiting for something else to happen and make another interim move," Burdo said. "We have done that before. The culinary arts is a great program and we have to protect it."
The school is planning a two- or three-story, 15,000-square-foot culinary facility costing $4 million and opening in 2010.
The program trains chefs and bakers, waiters and restaurant managers. It also operates a bakery and restaurant.
Burdo said he favors the Mendocino Avenue site because of its access and parking.
The food and wine center is a $100million proposal for 5? acres at Railroad Square, along the lines of the Ferry Building in San Francisco, with 20 produce vendors in a 30,000-square-foot market, a restaurant, bicycle shop, child-care center and 250 condominium units.
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