Administrators will move quickly on Lagoon construction to take advantage of cheaper construction costs during a soft economy and to ensure that no unforeseen state regulations hinder their plans, an official said Wednesday.
Members of several university committees, including the Board of Trustees and several top-level administrators, spent about two years deliberating about whether to fill in four acres of the Lagoon, said Eugene Sunshine, vice president for business and finance.
The discussions began when Northwestern started digging the foundations for the Nanotechnology and Life Sciences buildings, he said. With mounds of extra dirt on hand, administrators were inspired to brainstorm possible uses for it.
“We thought, ‘Well, jeez, maybe this is the time, if we’re ever going to think about doing it.’
“For a whole lot of reasons, including timing and the need for more analysis and the approval processes that were needed from the state … the timing never worked so we didn’t use any of that fill,” he said. “That’s actually what focused us.”
Administrators said they planned the project to create more space for parking and future buildings on a campus running out of open land.
The project, which has an expected completion date of early 2003, will create two acres for general campus parking and two acres of open space, all of which eventually could be used for at least four buildings, Sunshine said.
Responding to student outcry against the plan, Sunshine said student input is not usually sought on long-term projects.
“We followed the kind of practice we follow in any kind of building project – some of the deans were involved, a lot of the folks in central administration, some of the trustees,” Sunshine said. “We treated this within the same manner we treat all kinds of capital projects. … Not all construction projects require a building coming up out of the ground.”‘
Students and alumni have been protesting the plan and sending e-mail petitions since it was announced Tuesday.
Tom Pickett, Weinberg ’90, said he received an e-mail Wednesday describing the plans and pushing alumni to contact University President Henry Bienen if they disagreed with the decision. Pickett himself called Bienen earlier Wednesday, but had to leave a message.
“I was just outraged (when I found out),” said Pickett, an attorney in Chicago. “It is a landlocked campus, but that means all the more they should preserve the open spaces.”
Pickett said he would consider withholding several hundred dollars a year because of the move. No alumni have called to retract their donations because of the construction, said Charles Loebbaka, director of media relations.
Sunshine said students shouldn’t worry about losing recreational activities on the Lakefill. Most construction will affect a small area of the Lakefill land, it will most likely be while the weather is still cold and traditional activities from riding a bicycle along the lake to May’s Armadillo Day will continue.
No one discussed the possibility of filling in the Lagoon when the university created the Lakefill in the 1960s, said University Archivist Patrick Quinn, because administrators thought it would be enough to hold the university’s expansion. Since then, the University Library, Norris University Center and Pick-Staiger Concert Hall have been built on that land.
“You had that vast amount of space – it wouldn’t have crossed anyone’s mind,” Quinn said. “No one envisioned a Lakefill crammed with buildings.”
