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University Master Plan Addresses 21st Century Opportunities, Challenges
The University at Albany is building
for the future, with a master
plan that will lead to the most significant changes in the University's physical plant since the uptown campus
was built more than 30 years ago.
Planning and construction costs are estimated at more than $100 million for the first
five years. The plan, which is designed to be carried out in three phases between now and 2008, calls for up to
one million square feet of construction and renovations—including a new life sciences building, public safety building,
sculpture studio, and entry building on the uptown campus and renovations on the uptown and downtown campuses.
And it is off to an excellent start, with Gov. George Pataki having recommended nearly $15 million for Albany in
his 1998-99 capital budget. The State University Construction Fund also has $200 million available to match any
project monies the University can raise from private and/or non-state sources.
The master plan was adopted after a year of interviews, data collection, hearings, and
discussions by architects, planners, and University and Capital Region community members. It will realign Perimeter
Road and reinforce the academic and research functions of the academic podium by surrounding it with “green space”
and moving vehicle traffic and parking out toward the residential quadrangles.
“The University at Albany has succeeded and excelled because it has responded to the changing
needs of society,” said President Karen Hitchcock. “Our goal for the 21st century is to burnish and enhance the
University’s reputation as a premier center of scholarship and research. To achieve this goal, we must address
several issues regarding our physical environment—and respond to the need for more academic space, the expanding
use of technology, and the changing academic needs of faculty and students.”
Phase I work is scheduled to begin this spring, with realignment of Perimeter Road farther away from the academic
podium and construction of new parking spaces on the uptown campus. Later, Husted Hall on the downtown campus and
the uptown campus administration building will be emptied and renovated for conversion to academic use.
All construction and renovation programs will be planned to cause the least possible disruption
of the academic program, said Executive Vice President Carl Carlucci. He called the master plan “just one step
in meeting the challenge before the University at Albany. People call the uptown campus the ‘new campus,’ ignoring
the fact that it is now more than 30 years old, and was designed for only about half the number of students who
now attend (16,000).”
The State University Construction Fund, led by Michael Clemente, “has been extremely supportive
and helpful,” Carlucci said. And while Gov. Pataki demonstrated his commitment to master plan goals in his five-year,
$2 billion capital budget for the State University system, Carlucci noted, “the University will continue to seek
further support for items in the master plan from the governor and legislature.”
Hillier, a Manhattan architecture firm, and a local firm, Mallin-Mendel, assisted the University in developing
the master plan, which has primary goals of providing “sufficient high quality, technologically suitable, and flexible
instructional space for classrooms, laboratories, and their support areas,” and “dedicated, flexible research space.”
Other goals are to develop “primarily a safe pedestrian environment” and “a welcoming,
user-friendly campus,” and to ensure that the buildings on both the downtown campus and the uptown campus academic
podium are not over-used.
The master plan divides the uptown campus into three
zones:
- The Center Zone, immediately surrounding the academic podium, which would reinforce the podium’s academic
and research functions by surrounding it with a “green area,” up to 400 feet wide, of open spaces and pedestrian
walkways, moving vehicle traffic and parking out toward the quads;
- The Middle Zone, extending from the edge of the Center Zone to 1,200 feet from the edge of the podium,
incorpo-rating the four residential quads and most parking for the uptown campus; and
- The Perimeter Zone, encompassing all areas more than 1,200 feet from the edge of the podium and including
most recreation-athletic facilities and specialized facilities, such as the Center for Environmental Sciences and
Technology Management (CESTM) and the apartment-style Freedom Quad residential complex. A special zone also was
created to protect the immediate area around the uptown campus lake.
- Life Sciences Research Building — A 215,000-square foot life sciences research building to be
built on the east side of the uptown campus, either immediately adjacent to, or southeast of, the podium. This
building will be a state-of-the-art, modular, and flexible facility that will address some of the University’s
research space needs, as well as providing surge space so that existing physical science buildings can be renovated.
- Sculpture Studio — A 16,850-square-foot sculpture studio to be built off Perimeter Road on the east
side of the uptown campus. This will replace an off-campus, rented facility, enable the entire Fine Arts Department
to be located on the uptown campus, and improve the facilities available to the department.
- Entry Building — A 70,000-square-foot entry building to be built on the uptown campus at the south end
of a reconfigured Collins Circle, with an all-weather, skylighted passage connecting the building and an auto drop-off
point to a new internal pedestrian system under the podium. This building will clearly mark the entrance to the
uptown campus, and provide space for the University departments and staff who serve and meet with new and prospective
students and other visitors.
- New public safety building — The current public safety building, a temporary facility in poor condition,
will be demolished by the proposed realignment of Perimeter Road. A new, 8,700-square-foot public safety building
will be added.
Proposed renovations include upgrading the heating plant and building a new cooling
plant on the downtown campus; creating a safe and weather-protected lecture center-level pedestrian system that
links all buildings on the podium; emptying and renovating the administration building on the uptown campus
for use by College of Arts and Sciences departments and Husted Hall on the downtown campus for Rockefeller College
academic space.
Uptown campus improvements include realigning West Perimeter Road away from the podium
and Collins Circle; improving intersections; relocating parking away from the academic podium; constructing an
entry passage and improving landscaping at the entry plaza. Both the uptown and downtown campuses would have improved
graphics, signage, and lighting.
Other high-priority projects include renovation for new uses of the current biology and
chemistry buildings and Health Center on the uptown campus, and the graduate library on the downtown campus; construction
of an 86,000-square-foot academic building west of the podium to house social science programs, and a 42,000-square-foot
central services building to make the current site at Fuller Road, near CESTM, available for more intensive public-oriented
uses, such as a conference center.
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