Interviews are scheduled to begin this week for architectural firms who want the plum job of creating Emory's first comprehensive campus master plan. A campus master plan was developed in 1991, but it did not include the outlying areas of campus.
Russ Seagren, director of Campus Planning and Construction, said his office is in the process of selecting three or four firms from a list of 13 who responded to a recent Request for Qualifications (RFQ). Seagren said he expects the Program and Budget Committee to conduct extensive interviews with the three or four firms on the short list during the last week of June and first week of July.
The Program and Budget Committee, with the addition of one member of the Board of Trustees, will serve as the Interview Team and Master Plan Steering Committee. The Program and Budget Committee includes President Bill Chace, Provost Billy Frye, Executive Vice President John Temple, Vice President and Dean for Campus Life Frances Lucas-Tauchar, Vice President for Health Affairs Michael M.E. Johns and Vice President for Institutional Advancement Bill Fox.
"We hope the firm or firms selected will begin the master planning process in July or August," Seagren said. "The entire process should take between 12 and 16 months."
Seagren said that in addition to including a campus master plan, which will serve as the vision for Emory's main campus 10-20 years into the future, the comprehensive plan also will include a long-range campus development plan that will address the following issues:
*An enhanced campus landscape
*Campus connectivity and cohesion
*Campus "edge" definitions
*Traffic and parking demands
*Future growth, development and land use allocation
*Campus infrastructure
*Environmental protection and preservation
*Points of arrival, departure and general navigation of campus
*Historically significant campus structures
What makes this planning initiative comprehensive, Seagren said, is its inclusion of Emory areas outside the boundaries of the traditional central campus centered around the quadrangle. The new initiative will address, for example, the Gatewood Road/Yerkes area and the University Apartments on Clairmont Road.
This is an opportune moment for Emory to develop a comprehensive campus master plan, Seagren said. "We are seeing the end of many projects addressed in the 1991 update of the campus master planning effort. Most of the projects are in construction or design. We are now contemplating new proposed and possible buildings, and we want those individual projects to have consistency with overall development of the campus."
--Dan Treadaway