The board of the City Colleges of Chicago voted Wednesday to authorize the first planning moves for a new $45 million Wright College campus planned for 32.5 acres on the Northwest Side.
Plans for the campus, to be built on the vacant site of the Chicago State Mental Hospital at Irving Park Road and Narragansett Avenue, are contingent on Gov. James Thompson`s signing a bill for the site.
The General Assembly has approved giving the land, valued at $7 million, to the City Colleges for a new Wright campus. Andrew McCann, board chairman, said he expects Thompson to sign the bill in August in a ceremony at Wright, 3400 N. Austin Ave.
The board voted to begin architectural and engineering studies and hopes to begin construction in early 1987. Irving B. Slutsky, City Colleges executive vice chancellor, said the new campus could open in 1989.
Slutsky said the Wright campus would be on the bottom of an extensive list of public university and community college building and renovation projects awaiting state funding.
Wright College`s 6,000 students attend classes in a 51-year-old former junior high school, which college officials consider antiquated.
