Sonoma State University is spearheading a drive to build a 10-acre, $10 million campus in Roseland, hoping to jump-start the southwest Santa Rosa economy and create 300 jobs.

Sonoma State professor Robert Colman is pitching the extension campus to Santa Rosa city leaders and to county officials, and is asking for $20,000 from both the city and county in redevelopment funds to match a $240,000 federal planning grant. On Monday, the Santa Rosa Redevelopment Agency will consider Colman'srequest.

If Colman receives the grant, it would finance a nine-month study into the feasibility of a multiuse center combining schools, ethnic shops and restaurants, social services and, potentially, a branch library. The campus, which also could include the new Roseland School District charter high school, would provide on-the-job training, a small business incubator and other services to one of the city's most economically depressed areas.

"It not only will attract people who otherwise wouldn't get an education, but it will also revitalize the area," said Colman, director of SSU's Enterprise Partnership Program at the School of Business and Economics.

Buoyed by grants it has in hand, the Roseland charter high school aims to open in fall 2004. But Colman and his collaborators predict it would take three years to complete SSU's multiuse center.

The ambitious plan is rekindling optimism in a community stung by 240 recent layoffs at Nokia, the closing of Albertson's grocery on Sebastopol Road, and the county's cancelation of a proposed $70 million human services building in Roseland.

"We've had so many knocks," said Terry Hilton, coordinator of the South and West Area Business Association, which represents 155 employers. "This type of initiative, just the mere whisper of it ... will mean so much to the residents of southwest Santa Rosa. It will give them hope."

Project supporters have not chosen a site, but mentioned properties near Sebastopol Road and other main thoroughfares. A section of Sebastopol Road just west of Highway 101, between Olive Street and Dutton Avenue, would be one prospect, County Supervisor Mike Reilly suggested, since the proposed human services building there was scrapped.

Reilly and other supervisors authorized $20,000 in matching funds Tuesday for the project, contingent on the city's contribution and an additional $20,000 the university must secure.

Colman's vision for an international marketplace where SSU students could intern is consistent with revitalization strategies the city and county have considered for the multiethnic Roseland neighborhood, Reilly said.

"It has a rich cultural diversity and in some ways that has contributed to the low economic status of the area," he said. "But we try to look at how we can capitalize on that diversity."

Of 1,380 students that Roseland School District serves, about 80 percent are Hispanic, according to Superintendent Gail Ahlas. Once the proposed charter school enrolls its 400 ninth- through 12th-graders, Ahlas said, they will benefit from the prospect of a college campus in their back yard.

"This is a marvelous opportunity for students to see the possibilities for themselves," she said.

Currently, Elsie Allen High School -- part of Santa Rosa City Schools -- enrolls 1,600 teens on the city's southwest side. And though the new charter high school would compete for those students, Santa Rosa school board President Hugh Futrell said he welcomed SSU's latest joint venture with Roseland.

"If Sonoma State pulls something off there that is of benefit to the southwest community while we continue to make Elsie Allen a first-rate school, then the combination can do nothing but benefit the southwest community," Futrell said.

The SSU satellite also might house day-care facilities for workers, substance abuse counseling, health screening and job placement services, Colman said.

Despite the focus on Roseland, "it would attract people countywide and from other counties as a hub to support job incubation," said former county supervisor Ernie Carpenter, a consultant to SSU on the initiative.

Outreach would stretch to Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties, Carpenter said.

After the feasibility study narrows the scope, location, timeline and other details in SSU's plan, supporters would return to the federal Economic Development Administration with grant requests totalling up to $9 million.

Without returning to the city and county for more matching grants, the balance of the project's $10 million funding would be raised on local and state levels, Carpenter predicted.