Plans for River Campus

This popped up in my Google alerts today... something fun for all you Pilot faithful to check out.

http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?a=293213&c=52163

The City Council is holding a meeting this afternoon on the River Plan, and included in it will be a vote on a resolution concerning UP. The link will take you to the text of the resolution as well as a mock-up of future development plans.

Of note... the location of the new recreation facility (across from Chiles, where the baseball field currently is); a new parking garage on Portsmouth St across from Holy Cross Court and Corrado Hall; a huge, connected library/student union building (in place of current library and Pilot House); another new dorm across from Fields and Schoenfeldt Halls; greenspace where the current parking lot is and where the baseball field is; and, of course, a baseball field, environmental lab/learning center, physical plant, tennis center, crew house, and storage facilities down on the River Campus.

It might take 50 years, but dang... wouldn't that be awesome?

Looks pretty nice. That could be a cool baseball venue.

Well, I don't know, we were thinking of turning an old tug into a party cruiser... I mean, who doesn't want to party on a 5000 horsepower, I mean if need be we could pull a VIP party barge too...

Looks like I saw this too late. But let me tell you, the public testimony portions of City Council sessions in Portland are FANTASTIC for people watching. I was at the meeting where they took testimony on the final agreement between Merritt and the city for renovating PGE Park. There were a couple people who were opposed to it and there is no way I would have believed they said what they did unless I was there myself.

Put it this way: If you're an elected official in this town you have to be prepared to spend a lot of your day listening to...interesting...perspectives.

And the track is where?

Woodless! wrote:And the track is where?

It's inside Chiles

Actually, I've heard that they will be putting an actually *good* indoor track in the new Howard Hall. Not an official one where you could hold real indoor meets, but definitely something you could train on - I think half-size, so 8 laps would be 1 mile.

When is all this construction going to start? I mean we have plans for a new library, cove, howard hall, river campus? Also, they are planning on building the new library/cove on the existing site...I think I need some explanation about how they are planning on demolishing a library without a new one ready to go.

A very large book sale?

All very good questions!

For the most part, the timeline depends on donations.

I do know that there is a lot of momentum for the new Howard Hall. Everyone knows we need a new one and it is, from what I understand, the top priority and will be the first thing built.

The big question is where it will be located. There are a few options: where the current Howard Hall is (which might not really accomidate the footprint very well), where the baseball field is (a nice location, but then where does baseball play?), over by Public Safety (probably the easiest spot, but perhaps too far away?), by The Commons/Tennis Center (a beautiful little spot, but also small and out of the way).

So that's the big decision, really. Once a location is finally settled on, I think things can start to move. They have already done all kinds of planning meetings about the facility - really, it's going to be pretty spectacular: a track, several gyms, huge workout space, several "private" rooms for aerobics, yoga, etc. Not sure about a pool... that really increases the cost, so I think that's still up in the air at this point.

Don't expect anything to get started on the River Campus for a few years yet - there is still a lot of clean-up work that needs to be done, and before anything can get started the first step will be building a new road down there, which will be quite an expense in and of itself. My guess, which is based on nothing other than a hunch and a basic understanding of what still needs to be done, is that it will be at least 3-4 years before anything gets started down there. And it could be much longer than that depending on how much money is available.

The hope is to build a parking structure on the corner of Portsmouth and McKenna McCosh (across the street from Corrado Hall), which you will be able to drive into from the "top floor" and be able to circle around and exit at the bottom. Once that is built, that will open up the parking lot for redevelopment, which will be a huge step. I know has also been talk of eventually closing the current main entrance to reclaim that space (from Willamette to the Pilot House) and making Portsmouth the main entrance, which would make sense once a parking garage is there.

As for the Cove/Library... yes, I have seen plans that would connect the two buildings. What I don't know is if it will be a tear-down/rebuild or a retrofitting. When that does happen, I'm sure they will find a temporary home for the library... the mezzanine level of Chiles maybe? Seems like that probably would be the best spot, especially if the new Howard is up and running. When Santa Clara built their new library, the used their soccer stadium as the temporary home.

And actually, the function of a library has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Does a school even need a giant edifice with endless stacks of books anymore? Pretty much all research is done online now, and I wonder how many kids are really digging into that massive collection of dusty old academic books and what not. And with what Google is doing with scanning books, who knows what kind of imapct that will have in the next 10 years. So I think what you'll end up seeing with a new library is yes, the traditional layout of stacks, but a much greater emphasis on study space, work rooms, interactive media, computer labs, etc. In some ways, we're fortunate we didn't build some gigantic albatross of a library 10 years ago. Now we can build one that is sleek, modern, and caters to the needs of 21st century students.

Very informative. Thank you

Stonehouse wrote:
And actually, the function of a library has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Does a school even need a giant edifice with endless stacks of books anymore? Pretty much all research is done online now, and I wonder how many kids are really digging into that massive collection of dusty old academic books and what not. And with what Google is doing with scanning books, who knows what kind of imapct that will have in the next 10 years. So I think what you'll end up seeing with a new library is yes, the traditional layout of stacks, but a much greater emphasis on study space, work rooms, interactive media, computer labs, etc. In some ways, we're fortunate we didn't build some gigantic albatross of a library 10 years ago. Now we can build one that is sleek, modern, and caters to the needs of 21st century students.

As a science major, no, I rarely looked for actual books in the library because by the time research gets into a book it's really not that new. What I did do was spend a lot of time searching for journal articles online, then finding them in the basement if I needed the full text.