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For the past month, a four-member team of University administrators has
held a series of forums on and off campus to get reaction to a concept plan
showing how the Horace Williams tract off Airport Road may be developed in the
decades to come.
Expect to see more forums through spring.
Members of the team are business professor John P. "Jack" Evans, who
recently ended a stint as interim vice chancellor for finance and
administration; Nancy Suttenfield, the new vice chancellor for finance and
administration; Susan Ehringhaus, vice chancellor and general counsel; and
Jonathan Howes, special assistant to the chancellor for local relations.
"There really is a sense of exciting possibility here," Evans said during a
March 2 forum held in Berryhill Hall.
The land consists of nearly 1,000 acres and is roughly twice the size of
the main campus. It extends about two miles in length. Its eastern flank
borders Airport Road about a mile north of Franklin Street.
And as University leaders see it, the property represents an unprecedented
opportunity to "leverage" the University's mission. But Evans, Ehringhaus,
Suttenfield and Howes all say there are a few essential points everybody needs
to understand about the Horace Williams property from the outset.
First, it is important for people to separate the planning process to
develop the Horace Williams property from the planning process for the new
campus master plan.
Faculty, staff, students and townspeople have had a chance to review the
campus master plan for the past two-and-a-half years, and the University
trustees are scheduled to approve the plan at their March 22 meeting.
The same process of public review for the Horace Williams tract is only now
beginning.
Second, people need to understand that Horace Williams will not be fully
developed for 50 years, 70 years, maybe even 100 years, Evans said. "It's not
something that is going to spring up overnight like a crop of
mushrooms."
To give his audience a sense of the scale of development being considered
for Horace Williams, Evans contrasted the amount of square footage envisioned
for it with the building space that now exists on the main campus and what will
be added to the main campus over the next decade with state bond money and
funds raised from private sources.
As it stands now, planners expect to build up to 8.25 million square feet
of building space at Horace Williams. The current buildings on main campus,
erected over two centuries, amount to about 13 million square feet. The
buildings now on main campus, erected over two centuries, amount to about 13
million square feet. An additional three million square feet will be added to
main campus over the next decade.
Finally, it is important for people to understand that academic and
research programs already on main campus will stay on main campus. Horace
Williams will not be used as a place to "export" the functions of main campus,
Evans said.
Instead it will be developed into a "mixed-use" environment where buildings
for institutional research intermingle with retail stores, civic buildings and
housing. The housing will range from tightly packed single-family homes to row
houses with a mix of price ranges to accommodate lower-paid staff and graduate
students as well as faculty. The idea is to put people close to where they
study and work so they will not need to use a car as part of their daily
routine.
At the same time, clustering homes, recreational areas and retail stores
around institutional buildings will create a fully functioning community that
remains alive and vibrant 24 hours a day, Ehringhaus said.
Of the 8.25 million square feet of building space now being planned, 5.8
million would be used for instruction and research, 2.3 million for residences,
120,000 for retail space and about 30,000 for civic and community space.
The concept plan for Horace Williams was developed by Ayers Saint Gross,
the same Baltimore architectural firm hired to do the campus master plan. The
work on the Horace Williams property, however, used as a starting point an
earlier plan drafted two years ago by JJR Inc., a landscape design, engineering
and environmental firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Former Chancellor Michael Hooker developed an advisory board to look at how
the property should be developed, but the board remained in a holding pattern
during the year between Hooker's death in July of 1999 and James Moeser's
arrival as chancellor in August of 2000.
The biggest change in the new concept plan and the one developed by JJR is
in the way it concentrates development into a smaller area, or "footprint." The
Ayers Saint Gross plan calls for a narrower, more compact street network that
will leave more land in a natural state.
The JJR study identified 550 acres, or about 56 percent of the total tract,
as developable. The Ayers Saint Gross plan, in contrast, calls for developing
only 295 acres, or about 30 percent of the total.
The plan leaves 170 acres for the existing Horace Williams airport, and 259
acres - or 26 percent of the total - in open space.
Most of the street network would be contained inside a winding oval that
loops around on the west and empties onto Airport Road to the east to frame the
main entrance.
This network of streets and open spaces would form the framework for five
distinct "precincts," each with its own distinct identity and functions.
The "East Precinct," located on the present site of the Chapel Hill public
works and bus facility, would be designed as a research campus with buildings
on the scale of South Building that would frame an open space with a look and
dimension similar to McCorkle Place, Evans said.
The "Central Precinct" is envisioned as a traditional neighborhood with a
grid network of streets organized around three public spaces, including a
crescent-shaped park marking the town center and a seven-acre recreational
park.
The "North Precinct" would feature research buildings and parking decks
fronted by retail shops.
The "Hilltop Precinct" would include a transit stop that would include a
town square surrounded by retail buildings. This precinct would capitalize on
the existing rail corridor that runs through Carrboro to the University
cogeneration facility on West Cameron Avenue. The corridor could be developed
into a dedicated bus way, Evans said.
The "West Precinct" would be predominantly residential.
Caroline Stuck, the deputy director of International Affairs within the
School of Medicine Administration, asked Evans if there would be bike paths to
match the network of sidewalks and streets.
Yes, Evans said, we want the "bike-ability" of the plan to be as good as
the "walk-ability."
Bob Johnston, a professor in the Department of Microbiology &
Immunology, told Evans at the March 2 forum it was important that the buildings
be built to look as interesting and attractive as the ones depicted in Evans'
slide presentation. If the first building is ugly, the rest will be built to
match, he warned. "It is very exciting to me," Johnston said. "It almost has a
European feel to it."
Evans agreed.
But, Howes added, the University is not at the point of thinking what the
first building will be, or when it will be built, or where.
Ehringhaus said the suggestions from the forums will be forwarded to the
University administration in the spring, possibly by the end of May. Meanwhile,
work on the financial plan will continue as well, she said.
This task of figuring out how much money will be needed and where it might
come from will fall to Stonebridge Associates Inc., a consulting firm hired to
perform program opportunity and financial analysis.
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