As Cal Poly considers developing portions of its agricultural land south of Highland Drive, one project within that area is officially moving forward.
In an email sent out to College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Services (CAFES) faculty and staff on Sept. 11, CAFES Dean Brian Horgan announced that the university will relocate its planned Farm Store from a site near the Crops Unit to across Highland Drive, within the area being considered for the university’s broader West Campus development.
“The new location also presents an important opportunity as conversations continue about the future of the West Campus,” Horgan said in the email. “Establishing the Farm Store there will create a visible and lasting agricultural and educational presence.”
Cal Poly has not made a final decision on its larger West Campus concept, which could bring housing, a hotel and conference center, senior living, restaurants, retail, and other development to land currently used for agriculture.
The Farm Store, however, is moving forward.
For retired plant sciences professor David Headrick, who has opposed developing the West Campus agricultural fields, the announcement is significant.
It “got people’s attention,” Headrick told New Times.
“Clearly you’re moving forward and you’re building on prime farmland,” he said.
The roughly $5 million Farm Store was initially announced in 2025 with funding from berry company Driscoll’s and was previously expected to open in 2027. Cal Poly now anticipates opening it by fall 2028.
The university said developing the original location would have required significant infrastructure and remediation investments. Moving the project, it added, will allow CAFES to make better use of donor funding while preserving the Crops Unit for other agricultural and academic uses.
“The Farm Store and associated outdoor learning spaces will provide hands-on learning opportunities for students across the college while establishing a permanent, highly visible agricultural presence at an important campus gateway,” Cal Poly spokesperson Keegan Koberl told New Times.
The university is also considering U-pick crops, kitchen and demonstration gardens, agricultural events, and other outdoor learning spaces surrounding the store.
CAFES Dean Horgan told faculty and staff that the project would create a “visible and lasting agricultural and educational presence” within West Campus.
But Headrick questioned the timing of asking the agriculture community for ideas about the surrounding space after deciding where the Farm Store will go.
“If you’re going to go ahead and just say you’re going to build and then ask for input on what more to build,” he said, “then there needs to be a stronger pushback.”
Meanwhile, Cal Poly’s agricultural holdings are growing.
On Sept. 21, the university announced that the Brughelli Estate donated the historic 390-acre Brughelli Ranch, a working agricultural property south of the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport.
About 60 percent of the newly donated Brughelli Ranch is classified as prime agricultural land, according to the university, including 100 acres of irrigated Class I soil.
The ranch has supported agriculture for roughly 150 years and is permanently protected through an agricultural conservation easement. Cal Poly said it will remain agricultural while providing additional opportunities for student learning and faculty research.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity to provide our students with a place where agriculture, conservation, and natural resource stewardship come together,” Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong said in announcing the donation in a press release.
Cal Poly has not said whether Brughelli Ranch is intended to replace the agricultural land that could be displaced by West Campus development.
Instead, Horgan told CAFES faculty and staff in a Sept. 22 email that should plans proceed, the university is working on ways to establish replacement orchards and return Class I acreage elsewhere on the main campus, currently used as irrigation fields for the dairy, to agricultural teaching and research if development proceeds.
The university expects to decide later this fall whether to move forward with the broader West Campus development. ∆
This article appears in Autumn Arts Annual 2026.
