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When Adam Gross packed for his trip to Chapel Hill last week, he made sure he
included a tie patterned with row upon row of tiny camels.
When he stood in front of University trustees to make the last presentation
before they approved the final master plan on March 22, his tie was the first
thing he referenced.
Camels, he said, are animals designed for a long journey. "And this has been a
long journey."
The length of this journey can best be measured not in months or miles but the
number of meetings held and the assortment of people who attended them.
Never before, with any of the other campus master plans he and his consulting
firm Ayers Saint Gross had helped shape, had Gross seen such inclusiveness in
the process, or sensed such intensity of emotion, or witnessed such a level of
commitment from trustees to not only get it right but to do right by nearby
residents who ultimately will be affected by what they do.
Action on approving the plan has been delayed since January as trustees
struggled to find a way to locate a transit corridor to the south side of
campus from Fordham Boulevard. On the one hand, trustees felt compelled to
select the best route to accommodate a regional transit route, either for a bus
system or light rail. They weighed that consideration with the desire of
residents along Mason Farm Road who live in the path of that route and do not
want to leave their homes or lose their quiet neighborhood as it now exists.
Debate has been long, hard and intense as competing interests have vied to have
their say and get their way over decisions about money, space, sites and
underlying philosophy.
Brad Matthews, the outgoing student body president, joked that Gross had been
on campus almost as long as he had. Gross responded by telling of how he told
the next student president, who was sitting in on the meeting, to pay attention
because the next few years will be no less important than the ones just past.
"What's really more important than the work that we've done is implementing the
work we've done," Gross said.
The journey that ended with the trustees' unanimous decision took three
years.
The journey to come will take millions of dollars and a half century to
complete, a process that state voters jump-started last fall by passing higher
education bonds that will make available some $500 million of construction
dollars for Carolina alone over the next decade.
After approving the plan, the trustees approved a series of resolutions that
will help get construction off to a smooth start.
They approved the hiring of Andropogon Associated/Cahill Associates of
Philadelphia as the engineering firm to design and implement a campus storm
water management plan.
They approved the hiring of William Wilson Architects of Boston to develop the
first phase of the new Science Complex. This phase will consist of 220,000
square feet of new buildings on two sites and will be used by the chemistry,
physics and astronomy, marine sciences and mathematics departments.
This phase of the Science Complex will cost $70.59 million, including $52.26
million in bond funds. Trustees also approved the demolition of Venable Hall
and the ROTC building in 2005 when the first phase of the new Science Complex
is scheduled to open.
Tim Burnette, the chair of the trustees' Finance and Business Committee that
made these recommendations and others that also were approved, said the
University may have set an unusual record in the length of time it took
considering a master plan. "I hope that after today we will not have that
distinction when it comes to executing it and carrying it out."
The overarching vision
On-campus student housing. More room for research. Historic
preservation. Intellectual climate. The arts. Storm water retention. Buffer
zones. Parking. Regional and on-campus transit. Everything was considered, and
nothing was considered in isolation.
Chancellor James Moeser described the master plan as both the map and a compass
that will be needed to keep the vision for the campus of the future
inextricably tied to its past.
The decision to approve it, he told trustees, was one of the most momentous
they will make during their tenures on the board.
The plan is complex, yet deceptively simple. Gross told trustees the guiding
principle behind all of it was "to stay true to the essence of Carolina."
The idea is to bottle the beauty of Polk and McCorkle places and replicate in
at the south end of campus that is now dominated not by trees and grass and
dappled sunlight but traffic and noise and jutting concrete structures that
make the Health Affairs side of campus look more like a part of a separate city
than part of a historic campus.
The idea is to add a quilt pattern of green space to the south end of campus
and thread it to the northern patches with a rich tapestry of walkways and bike
paths.
How can the plan add new buildings and still find room for more grass and
trees? By ripping out 20 acres of asphalt from surface parking lots. Half will
be used for building sites, the other half for green space.
The surface lots will be replaced by a number of parking decks and underground
garages, but the spaces replaced will not be enough to accommodate the growing
number of students and employees in the years ahead.
Not everybody likes that idea, Gross said, but many people accept the notion
that adding asphalt parking lots to maintain convenience would not be
compatible with the overarching goal of preserving and perpetuating the beauty
and charm that makes this campus the special place it is.
The two parking decks on the east and west sides of Kenan Stadium will serve as
linchpins in the network of walkways that planners hope will tie both ends of
campus together.
One deck will sit in what is now the Ramshead parking lot. The second deck will
go up in the Bell Tower parking lot.
The roofs of both will be covered with sod and turned into a patchwork of
playing fields and walkways. Both of the deck roofs will be at grade level with
South Street. The Ramshead project will also feature a new dining hall and
recreational center for students.
Gross envisions a day when it will be possible to walk from a game at the Dean
E. Smith Center to a restaurant on Franklin Street without crossing a single
street.
The goals are not limited to making south campus look more like north campus
and connecting the two together. A third goal is to make south campus function
more like north campus as well by transforming it into a place where students
live and play.
Four new undergraduate residence halls are already being built at the corner of
Ridge Road and Manning Drive. New married student housing developments are
planned for the base of Baity Hill on the southeast side of campus near the
Smith Center.
The married student developments will replace some of the units that will be
lost when Odum Village is eventually demolished. Such housing on the southern
side of campus will allow more graduate students to walk or bike within an easy
distance of UNC Hospitals. At the same time, such development will keep traffic
on city streets and keep more students living on campus -- goals townspeople
have said they want.
Meanwhile, the arts corridor in the northwest corner of campus near Franklin
and Columbia streets will serve as a linchpin between the campus and the
outside world.
The plan for the corridor calls for restoring Swain while tearing down
Abernathy Hall and replacing it and the nearby parking lot with an underground
parking garage accessible from Columbia. Above the garage will be a quadrangle
of trees and grass and walkways that will be designed to connect the corridor
to Franklin Street so it will be easily accessible to visitors. Memorial Hall
will also be renovated.
"We really believe in our hearts that we can create a more beautiful campus
through this growth, that the campus can improve physically," Gross said.
"People will love it more, if that's possible."
Frustration over message
Some trustees lamented that in their view the soundness and beauty of the plan
has not failed to receive the attention it deserves because of the lingering
controversy over a small aspect of it: the southern corridor route that will
one day affect residents along Mason Farm Road.
Trustee Richard "Stick" Williams voiced frustration at how the farsightedness
of the vision had been lost in the media glare centering on the various
objections and complaints from residents and town officials.
Williams, a resident of Chapel Hill the past 11 years, said he keeps waiting to
hear praise from the community about the master plan.
There will be so many cultural amenities added that townspeople will be able to
enjoy once the ambitious arts corridor is completed.
There will be so much potential unleashed for University researchers when they
are finally given the lab space and equipment to fit their talents.
Why, Williams wanted to know, hasn't there been any praise for all the good
things the plan seeks to do?
David Pardue, a trustee who may have been the most outspoken champion of the
plan, said he came on the board six years ago when trustees fretted about
architectural standards on campus that many of them did not think were any good
and building was being guided by a master plan developed in the mid-1980s that
they didn't like much better.
At the same time, there were questions about how to accommodate more students.
Today, the University expects to see an increase of about 3,000 over the next
decade.
Back then, though, the estimated increase ranged as high as twice that
number.
At the time, Pardue said, trustees were convinced the only way to accommodate
so many more students was through satellite campuses.
Nobody wanted that to happen, but nobody saw anyway to avoid it until Gross and
the rest of his team from Ayers Saint Gross arrived.
"This is actually far better than I even dreamed it would be, and I have very
high standards for this University," Pardue said. "I want to personally thank
you for that. I think it's going to be just a wonderful design plan for us for
the next 100 years."
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