On scenic McIver Hill in Truckee, crews are putting the final touches on a new Sierra College campus that will be unveiled to the public next week.

The new eco-friendly Tahoe-Truckee campus will open Oct. 11. Visitors will enter a space filled with natural sunlight, built with recycled materials and earning a top rating for energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

About 600 students and staff members using a leased building in Truckee are expected to move to the new permanent campus home by the end of the month.

Sierra College trustee Dave Ferrari called the new campus "the beginning of a new era for Truckee and the Tahoe region as a whole."

The 28,000-square-foot campus is considered a community effort that involved balancing preservation of open space with accommodating a growing student population.

Voters in 2004 approved a $35 million bond to build a permanent campus in the Tahoe-Truckee area. After an intensive search, Sierra College chose a site in the Sierra Nevada bordered by two hills. The idea was to build a discreet campus on McIver Hill that would blend with the natural environment, said Rob Koster, project manager for Sierra College.

"While the college was certainly welcome in the town, the people didn't want to see the building, which is a unique situation," Koster said.

College officials worked closely with the Truckee Donner Land Trust to ensure that the campus design was in line with Truckee's historic character. The trust purchased a 33- acre easement from Sierra College to help preserve nearly 50 percent of the forested McIver Hill as open space. The easement – which surrounds the top of the hill – also allows for public access and a network of trails linking downtown Truckee to Highway 89.

"Instead of a contentious land use battle over condominiums on McIver Hill, as once planned, we get a state-of-the-art green Sierra College campus that blends wonderfully with our town," the trust's executive director, Perry Norris, said in a news release.

Past proposals for McIver Hill called for as many as 750 homes, according to trust officials. Zoning would have permitted up to 87,000 square feet of commercial space.

Sierra College, which owns 73 acres on McIver Hill, plans to expand its Tahoe-Truckee campus.

The current facilities include 14 classrooms fitted with audio-visual equipment, laboratories for a wide range of disciplines, an exercise room, library, and indoor and outdoor common areas for students to gather.

Koster said work crews are completing curbs and gutters near the entrance to the campus along Highway 89.

A new pedestrian bridge crossing Donner Creek provides the final link in a public trail that intersects the campus from the eastern end near downtown Truckee to Deerfield Drive.

Another highlight of the new campus: it will use 31 percent less energy than buildings of similar size in similar environments, Koster said.

The campus is expected to qualify for silver certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, which is nationally accepted for evaluating the efficiency and sustainability of a building's energy systems and materials.

IF YOU GO

What: Grand opening of Sierra College Tahoe- Truckee campus

When: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Oct. 11 Where: 11001 College Trail, Truckee

More info: (800) 242-4004 or www.sierracollege.edu/AboutUs/campuses/tt

Call The Bee's Lakiesha McGhee at (916) 773-7630.