Lagoon plan resurfaces

Renovations, green spaces top university planning group’s list

By Dan Strumpf

The Daily Northwestern

A campus planning committee draft report that seeks to overhaul Northwestern’s appearance and use of campus space does not rule out the controversial proposal to fill in a portion of the Lakefill’s cooling pond.

The draft, released Thursday, is designed to elicit the community’s reaction to a number of broad proposals about the university’s aesthetic appeal, said civil and environmental engineering Prof. Charles Dowding, the committee’s chairman.

“The challenge for Northwestern is that it is a very land constrained and under-spaced university,” Dowding said. “Compared to our main competitors, we have a great deal less land available to use and we also have less space per faculty member and student in that smaller amount of land.”

The committee found that planning for buildings and structures should be more meticulous, forward-thinking and creative, Dowding said.

Following student outcry over NU administrators’ February 2002 plan to fill in a portion of the cooling pond adjacent to the Lakefill, University President Henry Bienen created the committee in October 2002 as a way to include student input in major decisions.

Not ruled out of the committee’s initial findings, however, is the proposal to fill in a portion of the cooling pond to create room for more development — an idea university administrators withdrew after proposing it unexpectedly two years ago.

“The filling of the cooling pond is a primary concern among students,” said Weinberg junior Dan Grossman, a committee member.

Members — including two deans, six faculty members, six students and three staff members — met monthly to develop the proposal.

Dowding said the committee’s goal was to give university and community members more of a say in the development of university land.

Among the report’s more specific recommendations is a list of architectural projects for the university to consider. It suggests potential sites for renovation, such as older campus buildings Annie May Swift Hall, Harris Hall, Lunt Hall and the Music Administration Building.

The draft also advises preserving a “human scale” on the Chicago Campus, which is notorious for its larger buildings.

“In a sense, we would like to have our campus architecture match our intellectual prominence,” Dowding said.

The draft also suggests removing the Allen Center parking lot and the lot in front of Garrett Theological Seminary to prevent traffic from interfering with the major pedestrian route along Sheridan Road.

The draft report also suggests that administrators should keep in mind the need for green and open spaces on North Campus — a luxury rapidly disappearing with an increasing amount of construction.

The committee will meet with Associated Student Government leaders in the coming weeks to discuss the proposals, Dowding said. He encouraged students and other NU community members to read the proposals online at www.northwestern.edu/provost/committees/spaceplan/index.html.

“Now that the questions have been released, it’s important for NU students to come forward and to go to the meetings and voice their concerns,” said Grossman, the student representative.

The committee will hold a public hearing about the recommendations in the draft on May 17. Responses to the proposals should be sent to members of the committee, who are listed on the Web site, Dowding said.