PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 21, No. 2, July 19, 2001

Trustees update South Campus plan

Craig Chamberlain, News Bureau Staff Writer
(217) 333-2894; cdchambe@illinois.edu

Artist's rendering One interpretation of possible future development on the South Campus based on an updated master plan is shown. Assembly Hall is in the background and the South Research park is in the upper left. Part of a suggested golf course is in the foreground.

The UI Board of Trustees approved a new South Campus Master Plan two years ago, showing how research fields and facilities for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) would be moved further south.

At the time, there were hints but few specifics about potential uses for much of the land that ACES would vacate.

At the board’s July 12 meeting in Urbana, UI administrators provided some of those specifics with a master plan update focusing on the 680 acres at the north end of the South Campus area. The land in question, not all of which is currently owned by the university, is bounded by St. Mary’s Road on the north, Lincoln Avenue on the east, Windsor Road on the south, and Neil Street on the west.

The one major new need addressed in the 1999 plan was for a South Research Park, which was located on 50 acres along the west side of First Street. Building on that, the plan update makes clear on the first page that supporting the needs of state and corporate partnerships for economic development was "the driving force" for taking a fresh look at planning for this area.

The focus shows in the plan’s set- aside of another 125 acres for the technology park, those acres along the east side of First Street and along the north side of Windsor Road. Another 110 acres southwest of the South Research Park will be devoted to a mix of technology and academic uses, with no plans to displace the cluster of academic and related buildings west of First Street and north of Windsor Road.

About 95 acres along the west side of Lincoln Avenue will be devoted to existing or future academic uses, and 10 acres adjacent to that will be devoted to recreation needs. About 20 acres on the south side of St. Mary’s Road, directly east of First Street and across from the Assembly Hall, will be set aside for a hotel and conference center, and possibly an alumni center.

At the center of it all, and bordering the east side of both the technology park and the hotel/conference center, is 250 acres set aside for a championship-level golf course – which also would serve as a center of turf management research for the College of ACES.

The plan also calls for saving a number of historic buildings within the area, including the round barns, two dairy barns, a horse barn and the Agronomy Seed House.

In other business concerning buildings and grounds, the board got a preliminary look at designs for both the National Center for Supercomputing Applications Building and the Post-Genomic Institute.

The NCSA Building will be located on the south side of Clark Street, between Mathews Street and Goodwin Avenue, and north of the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science. The design calls for a four-story building of more than 130,000 gross square feet, which will face south toward the Siebel building. With the closing of Main and Stoughton streets, the space between the two buildings will form a small quad.

The plan for the Post-Genomic Institute calls for a three-story building to be located on the north side of Gregory Drive, directly east of the Morrow Plots, the university’s historic research field plot.

Previous plans for locating a parking garage and fire station at that site were thrown out by the board following concerns from several researchers about its effect on the Morrow Plots. Trustees were assured by Robert Todd, associate vice president for administration and human resources, that there were no similar concerns about this building.

Public comments
The board heard from several speakers during its public comment time. Among them was Maeve Reilly, a WILL staff member and president of the Child Care Task Force for the campus chapter of the Association of Academic Professionals.

Reilly outlined the ongoing concerns of faculty and staff members concerning the availability and cost of child care. Though recognizing some positive steps by the university in dealing with the issue, she noted that state law concerning the UI has been interpreted by administrators as blocking any prospect for subsidizing on-site child care. She urged that the board ask counsel to draft an amendment to state legislation that would change that.

Other business
The board approved the appointment of Paul W. Bohn, currently professor of chemistry, School of Chemical Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, professor in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and research professor in the Microelectronics Laboratory in the College of Engineering, as interim vice chancellor for research until the position is filled on a permanent basis. Bohn succeeds Tony G. Waldrop who resigned. Bohn’s appointment is effective Aug. 21.