Master plan indicates big changes for WMU

By Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald

Students will see big changes in academic buildings and apartments on campus in the near future, according to two Master Plan review sessions held this week.

The review sessions were held Monday and Tuesday at the Western Michigan University Fetzer Center hosted by David Dakin, WMU Director of Campus Planning.

The Master Plan serves as a guide for anything built or renovated on campus.

“To have a master plan is to create a guide, a framework, that guides the overall goals and objectives the university wants to meet,” Dakin said.

“The term is a little misleading because it’s not like a building with a floor plan. It’s more like a framework that guides you in the development of campus.”

Jo Wei Looi/Western Herald - David Dakin, director of Western Michigan University’s Campus Planning spoke at the Master Plan review sessions Tuesday evening.

WMU’s master plan includes ten areas: to protect the Goldsworth Valleys, develop campus edges and entrances, enhance wayfinding and accessibility, promote alternate forms of transportation, distribute parking, connect the campuses, preserve open space, develop campus districts, create activity hubs, and distribute housing.

Sangren Hall and a new apartment complex top WMU’s current list of projects.

Plans for remodeling Sangren Hall are around 80 percent done, Dakin said, and the campus has hired a consultant and will hold open workshops on the reconstruction.

The new Sangren will face the Michigan Mall, where the corridor of Sangren’s lecture halls are.

That section of Sangren will be demolished for construction, with the Education Library on the top floor and four lecture halls moving elsewhere.

The back half of Sangren, featuring classrooms, offices and two courtyards, will be demolished once construction finishes.

The four-story building will be slightly larger than the existing Sangren and will still include the Education Library, lecture halls and Flossie’s Café in addition to commons areas for students.

Master plan workshop from Fritz Klug on Vimeo.

“One thing about Sangren is that there’s no place for students to wait for class,” Dakin said.

“When we were taking crews through there to plan it out, we were stepping over students to get through there.”

The Trimpe Distributive Education Building and nearby parking lots will also become the site of a new apartment complex that could accommodate 300 students, Dakin said.

The buildings would lie on the Trimpe Building site and parking lots 90, 39 and 36, with the larger parking lot 76 across Knollwood Avenue becoming joint apartment and commuter parking, Dakin said.

“If you rent in the new apartments, you get a parking spot for free without having to buy a parking pass,” Dakin said.

“The catch is that if you park there, you can’t drive anywhere else on campus. Our hope is that students will leave their cars by their apartments. That’s being more sustainable.”

If the construction goes well, Dakin hopes to move Knollwood Avenue, which would normally go between the apartments, to the outside of the apartment complexes, giving the area a more residential feel.

However, the buildings and new streets will still need names.

“When we thought about it, we decided we wanted the help of students to name the village and streets in there rather than just calling them building A, B and C,” Dakin said.

“That would give it more a residential, non-institutional feel.”

Other future projects for campus include the demolition of the remaining Stadium Drive apartments for sports fields and knocking down Hoekje and Bigelow Halls for a new apartment complex behind the Bernhard Center and Sangren Hall.

For more information on the Master Plan, visit www.cpec.wmich.edu/masterplan.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=15182

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Feb 25 2010. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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