Update: Killian's article clarifies the situation. I might be happy with well-designed modern dorms, as long as the trees and open space are preserved.

"Should the UNC Greensboro Quad, a seventy-five-year-old landmark in the heart of the campus, be destroyed to make way for new dormitories?" There's an open forum on campus Weds to tell them hell, no what you think.

Comments

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

HELL NO.

[DW]

UNCG is under tremendous pressure because of explosive enrollment growth. If it doesn't grow up, it will have to grow out, and its neighbors are College Hill, Westerwood, College Park, and Lindley Park -- all great, historic neighborhoods that are in danger.

There's potential for growth along the High Point Road corridor, but the railroad tracks bordering campus are a difficult barrier to cross, and dealing with the railroad companies is frustrating and time-consuming.

UNCG and the surrounding communities have some tough problems to solve in the next decade. They'll need to work together to get it done well. Holding a forum is a good place to start.

[newtogso]

I'd be curious to hear the rationale for arriving at the conclusion that this is the best place to add dormitory housing. David forgot that one of UNCG's neighbors is Glenwood - an area that is increasingly in the signts of UNCG for expansion, most of which our neighborhood welcomes and have planned for in our neighborhood plan.

I'm curious as to why we have to start with the premise that the new housing must be ON campus - minus the fact that UNCG already owns the land. I can imagine several places within a mile radius of the campus that could benefit from the construction of student housing and the increase economic activity students bring to an area. With the HEAT bus in place, it seems this is a realistic option, but I return to my first sentence. Wish I could make the forum.

[DW]

"I'd be curious to hear the rationale for arriving at the conclusion that this is the best place to add dormitory housing."

Has anyone reached that conclusion? I hope not. Benjamin said at the link, "Participants can debate the pros and cons of either sending the existing Quad to the landfill and building new, or renovating the Quad and building elsewhere."

I like option 2. My point was, I hope everyone works together in good faith to find solutions to the enrollment problem.

NTG, I've seen the Glenwood plan. I wonder whether the neighborhood can tolerate the kind of density the university is looking for. If so, good. The city and the university would need to work together to improve the pedestrian environment on Lee/High Point Road.

[newtogso]

I hope not to, but if they are even proposing/considering it, then it suggests that there was some analysis. On its face, it seems like a bizarre consideration and one in which I would be surprised if they are expecting anything less than outrage.

Re: Glenwood - I don't think we can accomodate all of the new housing UNCG will need, but pretty much anything between Union and Lee St can become mixed-use residential. The first project - Lofts on Lee (next to U-haul) is already being constructed. We'd rather have it on Lee than mixed among the more residential areas of the neighborhood.

And, yes Lee/HP Rd will need to be improved. I'm still waiting to hear aobut the development commission that was proposed to be made up of stakeholders. The first contract for initial design study has already been let - apparently before the stakeholder commission is in place.

[newtogso]

I have to say that today's N&R story shed a bit more light on the topic than was originally constructed from the blog linked above. As usual, more than one point of view is necessary to form an opinion. The N&R article illuminated a bit on the process the University has gone through. It seems to me that UNCG should have two goals: 1) Don't mess with the open space characteristic of the Quad, and 2) maintain as much of the architectural character of the existing buildings (facing the quad) as possible while upgrading the interiors to suit the more modern-day needs of the current student population. The N&R article made the dorms seem pretty dreary.

[Joe Killian]

My article on this in the N&R today is worth reading for some technical information absent from the discussion in many places.

First: the school's considering two equally expensive options. Either building new dorms that look like the old dorms but have more bathrooms, modern wiring, plumbing, handipcap accessibility and more space in the same spot or gutting the buildings - which are small, cramped, full of asbestos and with bad wiring, no handicap accessibility, no air conditioning and gang bathrooms shared by 25-30 students - and modernizing them. Either way it's going to cost about $100 million and displace some students while it's done. If they gut the buildings and modernize them, though, they're going to actually end up decreasing the number of beds offered in them and have to build a new building somewhere to offset that anyway.

Leaving them alone because they're old and beautiful just isn't an option for the school. The housing program needs to support itself as it doesn't get state funds and students would rather move off campus into modern apartments than live on the Quad - which was the case even when I lived on campus.

The school is also, like a lot of schools in the recession, seeing a surge in enrollment and expects to add 400 on campus students by 2011 and every three years thereafter for as far as they're projecting.

[DW]

Joe, good story. Stories like that are the reason I still subscribe to the N&R.

[Joe Killian]

DW:

Also - coupons!

[David Boyd]

Why add 400 every few years? Why not cap enrollment and increase quality?

[Joe Killian]

Yeah - that's a whole other conversation.

I've learned that this is a real struggle at UNC schools - this tension between wanting for financial and also public accessibility reasons accept more students all the time but also wanting to be able to offer a quality experience for everyone.

A&T has had a real tug-of-war over this one the last few years.

[Margaret Banks]

Re: Dorms with "no air conditioning and gang bathrooms shared by 25-30 students."

You make that sound like a bad thing, Joe. In my world, that was called "living on campus."

[Joe Killian]

In some places at UNCG it still is. I was lucky enough to live in one of the more modern dorms my freshman year and they don't make them like the ones on the Quad anymore.

For what they're charging for rooms there you do have to wonder who'd choose no air conditioning and gang bathrooms over living a mile off campus in a modern apartment.

[newtogso]

In the early 90's at a certain high-end Washington, DC university, students slept two and three to a room in a building that was originally designed as a woman's prison. Times were tight in the 20's and it was easier to build a building that had already been designed. Building still stands, still holds freshmen students each year. They do keep repainting the interior walls. But those gray vinyl tiles in the rooms are there for eternity. I think modernizing the interior of these dorms makes sense, but they may not be the best place to try to increase capacity.