RE: south campus plans
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Folio Home > Nov 28, 2008 > Early plan for South Campus put forth
Early plan for South Campus put forth
By Michael Brown
A steady stream of local residents and curious citizens flowed through the university’s South Campus sector plan open house, held Nov. 18 at the Saville Sports Centre.
The open house was held to allow neighbours and and other interested stakeholders an opportunity to review preliminary sector-plan ideas from the U of A’s Long Range Development Plan, which provides the overall planning framework for development to 2030, guiding physical growth at the U of A.
“This represents our current thinking around future development of the South Campus,” said Don Hickey, university vice-president of facilities and operations, at the open house. “We believe that in the long term, the northern part of the South Campus could accommodate 12,000 to 15,000 students and bring the total enrolment up to the 50,000 mark.
“It’s a long-term projection, but you need a vision to ensure that if we begin to develop, we’re doing it against a plan that has had some thought and buy-in by people.”
Development for the South Campus will take place primarily on the portion of land located north of 61 Avenue and west of 114 Street. If given the go-ahead, phase 1 of the South Campus sector plan would unfold over the next seven years and would see South Campus lands directly west and northeast of the Saville Sports Centre developed to include shared-use buildings and a central utility plant.
Hickey says development of the South Campus would go a long way in relieving the increasing space pressures being forced on the North Campus. The current building footprint for the North Campus is in excess of 50 per cent of available land area, meaning that buildings take up half the available space on campus. The maximum average coverage for South Campus is being targeted to 30 per cent.
“Here we are celebrating our centenary right now and 90 per cent of the university is located on the North Campus, which is about a third the size of the lands on the South Campus,” said Hickey. “The North Campus is under a lot of pressure, and developing the South Campus should help relieve that.”
Who would be relocated is still up for further discussion, but Hickey says both the faculties of agricultural, life & environmental sciences and physical education and recreation have expressed interest in the move.
“They would be the most natural faculties to move,” said Hickey. “This is significant, as any time somebody relocates you free up space on North Campus as well. The backfill opportunities across the North Campus become very important.”
With ongoing LRT upgrades, the U of A is set to join a select group of North American universities that can lay claim to four LRT stops at its disposal. Hickey says this offers the incredible opportunity to move students and staff to and from classes and facilities using public transport.
“We think this development keeps with our linear urban-campus concept, whereby we have an LRT station and linkage connecting downtown to two stations on North Campus and to a station on South Campus, giving commuters access to the three campuses in a matter of minutes,” he said.
Also of importance for this mainly pedestrian campus is the particular attention paid to housing. Total classroom and lab space comes in at roughly four million square feet, while the sector plan budgets 2.5 million square feet for housing.
“We currently have 12 per cent of our student enrolment in [on-campus] beds and we feel that should be significantly higher, perhaps 20 per cent,” said Hickey. “This capacity is currently not possible on North Campus without introducing a ridiculous density.”
Although the need for expansion is now upon the university, the current plan is still quite malleable and hinges on a number of factors. Hickey points to the success of 2015 Universiade bid as a timetable determinant, as is the economy.
“Everybody is excited about the vision, but ultimately we are captive to government funding,” he said. ‘With the uncertainty around the economy right now I wouldn’t say it puts a cloud over these plans, but it puts some uncertainty around timetables.
“That’s why we are saying the northern part could easily take 50 years to develop.”
http://www.folio.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?v=83301&i=85957&a=5
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