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UNC Charlotte Campus Master Plan


jb4563

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While it is important for that part of campus receive improvements, I can't see the school improving those areas much in the future. Not in the next couple of years at least. That is, unless somebody in the student counsel pushes for it. I can see it getting approved and pushed through if it goes that route rather than through the facilities planner. Their main focus is the educational grounds of campus where the vast majority of the school's overall appearance is key. That's the part the parents see when they bring Jr. to come visit the campus. Even at CH a lot of the dorms that are further out don't receive as much love.

One improvement I'd love to see get done is that long gravel walkway that goes between Van Landingham Glen and the gardens with the bridge at the bottom of the valley. I wish it was just one large foot bridge that went across the whole valley. That would be pretty cool, but expensive. That would make a great project for the architectural and engineering program to build instead of that stupid 2' wide footbridge next to Storrs. I can't tell you how many hot days my friends and I would be sweating going into class thanks to that hill.

Oh yea, and whoever was talking about CATS bus stops, there are actually five total on campus, but unfortunately they are all near the front of the campus except the stop at CRI on N Tryon.

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  • 3 months later...

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How many years down the road is the removal of freshman parking privileges/requiring them to live on campus? Think it'll ever happen? And there isn't a parking crunch on campus, just a prime parking crunch. Everyone wants to park as close to possible to whatever.
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A few new sights on campus. For one thing, Cypress and Squires have been renamed, Lynch (Cypress) and Laurel (Squires). I just noticed this tonight, so maybe I am a little off. Also, the Student Union is starting to sprout up on campus. The progress and size so far is astounding. It really will make a huge impact, from a building point of view, on campus, especially going down hill towards the soccer stadium.

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Yeah I been to the new health center, it's really nice inside. As far as them renaming Cypress and Squires, now that was totally randomly out of the blue.... don't ever hearing any news that they were going to do that. What about the people that they were originally named for ... do they just not care about them anymore or something? What's the story behind this?

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As to the Quad, I'm not sure what the hold up is. My bet would be that it has something to do with funding or they are now going to wait until Fall semester is over so they can have more construction material on site.

I don't know about the original name of Squires, but Cypress was not named after a person, but rather, just a tree. A lot of campus housing used to be named based on a tree theme for some reason. Example: Maple, Oak, Pine, Cedar, Elm, Hickory, Cypress, and Sycamore. According to my roommate, who I assume to be a credible source on most things UNCC given who is father was, they decided to stop using this naming system and instead honor previous faculty as the opportunities presented themselves. One such example was a year or so ago when they renamed the SciTech building Woodward Hall after the previous Chancellor.

One very welcome change this year was the extension of the CRI Express bus line around the southern part of campus. This helped tie in the buildings that I have classes in. The past few semesters I had never had a reason to utilize the lines.

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Yeah I been to the new health center, it's really nice inside. As far as them renaming Cypress and Squires, now that was totally randomly out of the blue.... don't ever hearing any news that they were going to do that. What about the people that they were originally named for ... do they just not care about them anymore or something? What's the story behind this?
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One thing they really should do is make the official name of Phase III (the blue ones that i lived in my sophomore year) Smurf Village and get it over with because most of us called it that anyway. Though, probably not possible due to copyrights :(

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Got some news on the construction status of the quad (area between Atkins, Cone, and the Sac) per the University Times today. Construction should start in the early months of the spring '08 semester and if all goes well, should be finished by the fall semester '08. The budget for the project is supposed to be 1.5 million and should include some new landscaping, a tiered seating arrangement and some connecting pathways to the new Student Union.

Unlike some students on campus, I am eager to see this get done and see some better walkways in that area. I like the idea of a new quad there and I think it will be a popular spot for students to hang out once complete.

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new walkways to the student union? how is that possible? The very idea of the quad is that it is surrounded by buildings. Unless they plan on digging under one of the buildings, I don't see how they can build a path to the union.

Still haven't made it to campus for those pictures, maybe next week

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new walkways to the student union? how is that possible? The very idea of the quad is that it is surrounded by buildings. Unless they plan on digging under one of the buildings, I don't see how they can build a path to the union.

Still haven't made it to campus for those pictures, maybe next week

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Ok, so thanks to an advising appointment, I was on campus at about 7AM today and decided to run around while campus was relatively empty and I was waiting on my apt. Unfortunately, I had to pick the one overcast day to do this. But a promise is a promise.

Here is the new (first picture on here of it anyway) roundabout in between Fretwell, Cato, and the Eastern Parking decks.

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While also not extremely new, this is the first picture of the Eagle in front of Woodward Hall I've been able to take that didn't have construction material everywhere.

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Here is the newly remodeled Baseball Stadium. Not huge, but MUCH better than what was there before:

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The CRI Express Shuttle on the Northend of campus, halfway up to CRI.

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The two completed CRI buildings viewed from the athletic fields. It's hard to make out, but all the construction equipment between the two buildings is for the 29 building being built behind the building on the right of this picture.

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The north end of campus coming back down from CRI.

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Inside the remodeled Atkins Library tower, all of the windows have built in flush blinds that aren't noticeable from about five feet back, but up close, they take up about 50% of the window. They let in light, but don't allow direct sunlight to hit the books inside. It doesn't look as though they actually open or close, but I haven't been up in the tower at night since the remodel so I'm not positive. This is the best picture of uptown my little 4x optical zoom Canon could muster through the blinds:

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All the windows in the tower portion have those blinds except two on the 10th floor inside the stairwell hallway. These windows unfortunately only face North so there is only so much that can be viewed from them. But, for those of you who do not know, here is the quad in front of Prospector and the bookstore that is going to be remodeled.

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The student union was a lot further along than I had anticipated:

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It looks like they are building it in three sections. The first section's steel may actually be topped out but I don't know what the actual scale of this building is supposed to be. They have some floors put in in this section as well. There is another structure (I'm imagining some type of accompanying maintenance and utilities building) being built behind the SU which looks relatively far along. They have cleared and leveled the land for the rest of the building, but steel hasn't gone up yet. It looks kinda funny having this skinny five story section jut out of the ground with basically nothing else around it proving there will be more to it.

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One thing I noticed, but didn't take a picture of, was that they have gotten rid of the hideous staircase/ramp next to Wiltmore-Wallis/the SAC leading down towards the new end of campus. It has been replaced with a very nice staircase with plazas incorporated into it leading down towards the courtyard between the new College of Health and Human Services and the new College of Education building. I knew they were building this new staircase, but had no idea they planned on demolishing the old one. Good riddance! This is the courtyard at the bottom of the stairs. You can't really see it, but the courtyard goes beyond the short wall halfway down. I wish the lighting had been better when I took this as this picture doesn't do it any justice. This angle will look straight at the center entrance of the SU when completed.

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As far as the new entrance goes, there wasn't really anything worthy of taking pictures. Just some site work going on right now.

Just because:

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  • 1 month later...

in driving by campus today, I've noticed a lot of changes on both sides. There is a now a tower crane up on 29 for the new CRI building. I find that interesting that they would include one there when they are using a portable crane for the Student Union (which I thought would be larger.)

I also noticed that the front entrance is really far along. I hadn't been in the front of campus since mid-november-ish. They have the roundabout laid out and it looks like they have most of the landscaping fixed up, they just need to basically pave and do the finishing touches, but they are much further along than I expected they could get in a month and a half. That is, at the rate the college normally does things.

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I'd also like to add that there are about as many construction workers and machinery working on the front entrance (drove by again today) than working at the BoA/Ritz site and Epicentre uptown. I was amazed to see that many backhoes in use.

Cityboi, the original construction was a completely different phase than the last phase that was completed in mid-07'. There is no longer any construction on Atkins now. They re-renovated the tower portion, tore down the disgusting (and poor quality) cladding that was up on the tower from the first renovation, replaced it with much higher quality masonry, and also replaced the windows with windows that had built in shades that block out direct sunlight to help preserve the library's collections.

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I'd also like to add that there are about as many construction workers and machinery working on the front entrance (drove by again today) than working at the BoA/Ritz site and Epicentre uptown. I was amazed to see that many backhoes in use.

Cityboi, the original construction was a completely different phase than the last phase that was completed in mid-07'. There is no longer any construction on Atkins now. They re-renovated the tower portion, tore down the disgusting (and poor quality) cladding that was up on the tower from the first renovation, replaced it with much higher quality masonry, and also replaced the windows with windows that had built in shades that block out direct sunlight to help preserve the library's collections.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Since the enrollment is growing faster than ever, the university has hired Ayers Saint Gross architects to develop a new master plan. Out of the 900+ acres, UNCC has used only 400, but there is 179 acres that have either been protected or planned for new buildings. Still, just over half of the acreage is amazing for a school UNCC's size. Here is the Observer article:

http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/464964.html

I like how there is a push for greener design and iconic buildings. It shows a move towards actual sustainability rather than only creating room for the growing enrollment. I still hope that UNCC does not build on more than 3/4 of it's property, if that. We have amazing natural surroundings for a suburban school of almost 24,000, I would hate to lose it all to buildings that are ugly and monstrous.

In other news, the Student Union looks to have 2/3 of its steel up. They have really been working on the project and its presence is nothing but huge. I wonder if it is ahead of schedule. Now if they could do some repairs on Craver Rd., because it is loaded with potholes. Also, the new entrance is coming along nicely. I still don't see where the entrance itself is, but from the looks of it, they have created the main road up to the edge of the former front fields.

Finally, I have a friend who is an architecture major, and she told me last semester that the university was looking into creating a Master's program in Urban Design to go with the College of Architecture, Geography Dept., and the Urban Center in Colvard. I still don't know if this is coming in the future, but just the rumblings about it have made me extremely excited about the prospects for the university.

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I noticed this last line of the article "The university also may consider ending its practice of giving all tenured professors their own offices." I didn't know they actually did this. And yeah, I park alot in Union deck (today I noticed a new sign near the elevator with locations of things in it (vending, exits etc) and emergency phone numbers) and seeing the student union go up so fast is amazing, I did wonder if they were ahead of schedule too.

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