Emory Report homepage  

November 14 , 2005

Campus Master Plan Update 2005

(For the Full Campus Master Plan, including images, visit www.fm.emory.edu/campusplan.)

Letter from the President
Emory University has started on a transformational journey to become a destination university, a place where courageous inquiry leads. What is courageous inquiry? Call it both a defining characteristic and an intellectual destination, and Emory’s recently adopted strategic plan is the road map that will guide us there. Nearly every path we take toward our vision will exhilarate us by its vistas, even as it challenges us with obstacles.

Implementation of the strategic plan will both transform the campus and positively impact our community. There can be no doubt that Emory’s plan will enhance the metropolitan region and the state of Georgia. Through our research, education and health care, we will be building a better world for our children’s children.

How we do this has a bearing on the physical setting that is our campus. As stewards, we must accommodate change in ways that are in harmony with its beauty and natural environment, that reinforce the intellectual life that is the core of why we exist, and that add to the quality of life enjoyed by our faculty, students, staff and neighbors. This 2005 update of the campus master plan is intended to guide change and growth with thoughtful care, to assure that our physical setting is worthy of the destination university that is at the core of our vision.

President James W. Wagner


Introduction
The vision of “destination university” motivated the University’s comprehensive strategic planning initiative. Together, they presaged the need for additional facilities and connections. Consequently, the University began an update of its campus master plan. The existing one, completed in 1998, had been prepared with extensive effort and was envisioned as guiding development decisions for the next five–10 years. This Campus Master Plan 2005 Update builds from the strong principles and policies embodied in the 1998 plan.

The 2005 update has been prepared around four major themes:
• Strengthening on-campus living/learning communities;
• Integrating teaching and research to reflect Emory’s mission as a university;
• Allowing “silos” to thrive while bridging them together; and
• Planning comprehensively and in balance with the environment.

Its development began by embracing the University’s vision statement:
A destination university internationally recognized as an inquiry-driven, ethically engaged, and diverse community, whose members work collaboratively for positive transformation in the world through courageous leadership in teaching, research, scholarship, health care, and social action.

Paralleling the update, the strategic planning process involved development of school and academic, research and operating unit plans. The general principles, specific goals and ambitions set forth in the strategic plan provide a flexible and durable framework to guide the University over the next five–10 years.
Emory’s plans for the future extend well beyond its borders in DeKalb County. The strategic plan calls for new efforts to embrace the globe, its needs and its citizens. In addition, universities need to address the problems of their time. In the past, research universities have responded by building schools of policy studies. Emory seeks a more nimble approach and is planning to create a policy initiatives institute that will enable it to assemble experts from around the world to work on real problems and develop solutions within a 2–5-year timeframe.

One of Emory’s most compelling draws is its location in the vibrant, international city of Atlanta, whose diversity the University has nearly matched; Emory’s faculty, staff and student bodies are among the most culturally, racially and religiously diverse in its peer group.

Campus Master Plan
The campus plan is envisioned as guiding development decisions over the next 10 years and providing an even longer-term physical framework. Responding to the challenges of the strategic plan, the update provides for an estimated additional 3.5 million gross square feet (GSF) of capacity on top of the remaining 1.2 million GSF identified in the 1998 Campus Master Plan, for a total of 4.7 million GSF. This should provide the footprint for the next 25–50 years on the Druid Hills campus. Accommodating such growth, while retaining our distinctive sense of place and without encroaching on our neighbors, is a commitment that underlies the resultant plan. The plan update is organized around:

• History of the Campus and Established Design Principles
• Key Components of Campus Master Plan 2005 Update
• Emory and Its Neighbors
• Greening the Campus
• Campus Life
• Professional Schools
• Housing
• Academic and Administrative Space
• Health Sciences
• Transportation, Parking & Infrastructure

The Campus Master Plan 2005 Update will guide campus development for the decade ahead as Emory becomes a destination university.

Guiding Principles
Intellectual Community
Its physical manifestation is created through a network of buildings and outdoor spaces that promote interdisciplinary opportunities, connecting disparate units of the University through a network of outdoor spaces.

A Walking Campus
Designed predominantly for pedestrians and bicyclists, with vehicular movement elegantly accommodated. Existing surface parking lots must be incrementally restored from car places to people places.

Symbolic Centers and Edges
To respond to an inward focus on learning and an outward focus on community.

An Emory-Based Language
Buildings and grounds will grow from an understanding and respect for Emory’s history and community.

Environmental Stewardship
Mindful of the interrelationship of human and natural systems, Emory will create a sustainable campus that conserves natural resources, restores environmental quality and protects biodiversity.

Enlightened Frugality
All solutions to physical planning will be comprehensive. Building placement, traffic and parking, engineering systems, natural systems, aesthetics—all must be woven together to form a tapestry of buildings and spaces that foster community.

Sustainable Implementation
Future decisions pertaining to the physical development of the campus must reflect these guiding principles.

History of the Campus
The original Emory campus was planned by Henry Hornbostel. From 1914–19, his New York firm of Palmer, Hornbostel and Jones designed and built 13 structures on the Emory campus, all finished with local marbles from Tate, Ga., establishing a distinctively Emory texture.

Hornbostel’s architectural vision, coupled with his deep regard for the natural features of the landscape, gave birth to the Emory campus plan, which organized the central quad between two forested ravines, allowing for broad vistas of structures set comfortably within a woodland. The addition of buildings over the next 30 years maintained this idyllic setting. Through the end of World War II, the campus remained classically organized, with new buildings working from the original Renaissance architectural vocabulary.

This order began to break down after World War II as accommodating the automobile became a significant factor. Roadways were changed, added and redirected for the purpose of easy access. Buildings were then sited on the roadways; Emory began to lose its sense of collegiate organization. Experiments with modern architectural forms in the 1970s ignored the original design etiquettes.

By the late 1980s, many sensed the need to return to the basics. In 1996, then-President Bill Chace spearheaded the master-planning effort that resulted in the 1998 Emory University Campus Plan: A Framework for Physical Development.

Two years in the making, the 1998 campus plan was the result of a collective effort of the internal and external communities. Staff, faculty, students and neighbors came together to identify challenges, opportunities and relationships. The plan has become the solid foundation for discussion of physical growth and change on the Emory campus. One omission from the 1998 process is that it did not involve planning for the health sciences or Emory Healthcare.

The 1998 campus plan was a milestone in Emory’s history. It stopped the random construction of increasingly eclectic architecture, brought together disparate groups of campus interests toward a common cause, and identified a rational growth process that involved community participation.

With the core Guiding Principles, Emory was able to build consensus and vision for a new holistic campus culture. With the emergence of the Design Guidelines, a new physical vocabulary—an aesthetic based on history and tradition—was established for use in design and planning buildings and landscapes.
The Campus Master Plan Update 2005 builds on these fundamental documents.

Post-1998 Campus Development
Since the 1998 campus plan was adopted, Emory has added many new buildings, renovations, and open-space projects to the University catalog. Through sustained efforts, the environmental context of the campus returned to its visual roots, and its pedestrian character was upgraded to a walking scale of human community and continuity. In the last seven years, the contextual physical fabric has been reinvigorated into one that defines Emory as a beautiful and collegiate campus.

For example, in 2000, the 1,500 students and faculty housed at the Clairmont Campus were given a direct link to the main campus via Starvine Way. Alternatively fueled shuttles run regularly along this woodland passage where sidewalks and safe bicycling paths offer healthy options. Other users include the 1,600 staff who park in the Clairmont deck, now only a five-minute shuttle ride to the campus.

Land Use Policies
To guide Emory’s future development, a Land Classification Plan was adopted in 2004. Classifications range from land unsuitable for development to land best suited for future development. The classifications and their descriptions are as follows:

• Restricted Land (180 acres, 26 percent of total campus area) These areas (e.g., stream buffers and floodplains) are precluded from development by law, ordinance or covenant.
• Preserved Land (158 acres, 22 percent) These areas (e.g., the forests of Lullwater Preserve and Baker Woodlands) should not be developed due to their ecological value and essential contribution to campus identity and quality of life.
• Conserved Land (47 acres, 7 percent) This includes areas of land, such as the Quad, valued for their unique cultural history and/or contribution to the visual identity of the campus landscape.
• Managed Land (222 acres, 31 percent) This includes areas of land (e.g., Fraternity Row and Turner Village) that are currently developed to some degree but are not significant contributors to the Emory visual identity. Managed land can accommodate limited additional development or redevelopment.
• Developable Land (96 acres, 14 percent) This includes portions of the campus such as the Campus Services complex, that are preferred for redevelopment prior to the use of any other category of land. Redevelopment is preferred since it results in the least amount of impact to the existing campus environment and aesthetic.

Key Components of the Campus Master Plan
As Emory pursues its vision, the physical facilities will grow, as will the relationship of built space to place. This growing collection of buildings will require strength of organization around the central elements that identify the human pursuit of education and development. This strength should derive from clear and identifiable relationships that support the high quality of life that distinguishes Emory. Living patterns, opportunities for exploration and reverence for nature should all contribute to this plan of buildings, pathways, vistas and gathering areas.

The goal of the Campus Master Plan 2005 Update is to identify the growth patterns of physical systems that can be strengthened through simplification, organization or elaboration. Expanding the area of the pedestrian campus while simplifying roadway passages for easy way-finding is a key element of the plan. Growing the organization of research and science facilities for collaboration opportunities is another. And a third is the strengthening of community through shared opportunities for housing, dining, entertaining, study and sports.

Adding 3.5 million square feet of built space to any campus is a challenging undertaking, even if over a decades-long time period and especially when considering all the systems of circulation, arrival and departure, and internal function. The 2005 update includes concepts for locating new housing, multidisciplinary science facilities, a new vision for health care delivery, growth of professional schools and the library, a multipurpose facility, central campus live/learn environments, expansion of the arts, and new academic and administration buildings.

Growth and organization of the physical environment will affect other plan considerations, including utility distribution and connection, population densification, transportation, and material handling. These infrastructure systems must collect, select and deliver/remove while preserving the basic integrity of the aesthetic environment. The addition of buildings to the existing campus footprint will challenge concepts of land use, economic efficiency and contextual fabric when considering the infrastructure requirements.
The Campus Master Plan 2005 Update takes the existing campus acreage and creatively reorganizes precincts—areas where related activities take place—to accommodate growth. The precincts are reorganized within and adjacent to each other in order to provide the broad framework for extending community and collaboration as the campus grows.

The precinct reorganizations include the relocation of Emory Hospital to the east side of Clifton Road which, together with demolition of most of the existing hospital building, creates space for a new Academic Quad that will allow for expansion of the core of the University in the decades ahead. The demolition of housing near the North Oxford gate allows for the growth of Emory College’s physical and natural sciences centers. Removal of the hospital laundry from the Fraternity Row site allows for the development of a freshman housing complex within the pedestrian boundaries of the core campus.

Emory and Its Neighbors
Emory benefits greatly from the unique synergy created by the presence on Clifton Road of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (CHOA) and the American Cancer Society. Together, this nexus of health science and research institutions is a major asset for the region and for Georgia. Achieving the vision of a destination university is very real. However, it cannot take place without finding mutually beneficial solutions to the growing problem of mobility, especially along the Clifton Corridor, but also in the network of streets that constitute our neighborhoods.

The history of Emory and the nearby Druid Hills neighborhood are inextricably linked and have been so for nearly a century. Many faculty and staff are neighborhood residents, and whether associated with Emory or not, all residents enjoy Emory’s cultural offerings and such amenities as the Lullwater Preserve.

The 1998 campus plan was developed with significant input from the community beyond the campus, strengthening the relationship between Emory and its neighbors. Emory is committed to working with its neighbors on the major issues that shape quality of life and community. Druid Hills is Emory’s home; the University has a vested interest in the quality of life here, and Emory is committed to doing its part to enhance that quality. Successful collaborations have led to an exciting plan for revitalizing and redeveloping Emory Village (through the Alliance to Improve Emory Village), and traffic-calming measures that include a planned roundabout at N. Decatur and Oxford roads and Dowman Drive.

The Clifton Corridor is the largest activity center in the Atlanta region without direct access to the interstate system or off-road transit. Residents, employees and visitors all experience the growing congestion of the area’s roads. In 1998, Emory led formation of the Clifton Corridor Transportation Management Association (CCTMA), whose partners include CDC and CHOA, the corridor’s largest employers. Workable solutions to congestion are possible through careful and creative planning. To that end, Emory has taken the lead with CCTMA and DeKalb County in sponsoring a major, multimodal transportation study, and in seeking innovative solutions that are context-sensitive as well as effective in expanding current choices. In years to come, the University will continue to provide leadership, in collaboration with our neighbors, to achieve relief from the congestion that impacts all of our lives and to do so in ways that create great streets for people—not just for cars.

Greening the Campus
The University community takes pride in a campus rich with the natural beauty of open spaces, trees and plant life. Emory strongly supports the concepts of environmental sustainability. To further both “green” concepts along with the growth of our built environment, new processes have been embraced to ensure the preservation of the natural forest aesthetic. Emory’s adoption in 2002 of a comprehensive management plan for the Lullwater Preserve established a framework for stewardship of its natural systems. And, since 2003, a policy has guided “no net loss of forest canopy,” replacing lost trees and complementing DeKalb County’s tree preservation ordinance. Moreover, since its establishment in 1999, the Friends of Emory Forest has contributed significantly to greening by planting and maintaining many trees on the campus and environs.

In 2001, Emory made formal commitment to building new capital projects with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines. The University helped develop the guidelines through participation in the U.S. Green Building Council. Several recent Emory buildings have attained LEED certification, including the first certified LEED Gold Award for existing buildings granted to the Goizueta Business School in 2004.

Campus Life
The quality of life and sense of community on a university campus derive not only from the basic act of teaching, but also from those activities that support the development of character and culture, and mature the individual. The campus plan must be dynamic and flexible in addressing these non-academic needs. A study in 2005-06 is looking at opportunities for providing space to better handle the community needs of the University.

Multipurpose center: Coming together for shared activities is part of University tradition and culture. Through the years, Glenn Auditorium and the WoodPEC gym have served the purpose of assembly, but both have serious limitations and cannot effectively serve all of the educational and programmatic demands of the Emory community.

A planning concept is to locate a large multipurpose center (able to accommodate up to 2,000 people for major events) on the west side of WoodPEC with a bridge crossing over Fraternity Row, linking the new facility’s lobby level to Peavine Parking Deck. It could host assemblies involving some of Emory’s most distinguished guests (the Dalai Lama or Jimmy Carter, for example), as well as an array of other creative options including dances and career fairs.

New multiuse building on N. Oxford Road: The parking lot behind the Boisfeuillet Jones Center is a possible site for a new facility of up to 60,000 GSF that addresses a variety of University program needs. With direct access to Emory Village, the lower level would be an ideal location for retail services (e.g., a bookstore) to complement the needs of campus and community. Upper levels could house administrative and/or faculty offices or other needs. Sandwiched between this new facility and B. Jones would be a new, relatively small visitor parking deck with direct access from N. Oxford Road.

Food service additions: New food service operations are needed at currently underserved campus precincts, such as the North Campus research area and White Hall area.

Student Health and Counseling Center: With the relocation of the
existing Emory Clinic to the first phase of the Clifton Road Redevelopment Project, the student counseling center can relocate to the 1525 Building. Housing both the student clinic and the counseling center in the same facility will allow service coordination and privacy.

Theology, Law & Business: The Professional Schools
New buildings for the Candler School of Theology and the Center for Ethics: These facilities are to be constructed in two phases. First, a new classroom/office building of 70,000 GSF will rise behind Bishops Hall in the existing parking area on Arkwright Drive. This building not only will replace and grow the theology program currently housed in Bishops Hall, but also will be the new home for the Center for Ethics, relocated and expanded from its current quarters in the old Dental School Building on Clifton Road. The benefit of this new location is far reaching to the University as one of the bridge builders in the strategic plan.

The second phase includes demolition of Bishops Hall and construction of a new Pitts Library building (60,000 GSF) attached to the new classroom building. The growth of Pitts’ renowned theology collections and increased scholarly research no longer fit in the layout of the historic library building on the Quad.

School of Law Expansion: As demand dictates in the future, the law school has the opportunity to expand onto the upper level terraces with single story construction and/or with new building construction on the east side within the confines of the existing surface parking lot.

Goizueta Business School expansion: The addition completed in 2005 provides growth space for the business school. As the program continues to rise in national rankings, continued growth may require expansion (one logical option is to the west on the Rich Building site). A relocated business school library (13,000 GSF) is currently planned as a single-story addition on the east terrace of Woodruff Library.

Housing
Well-designed and sited on-campus residential facilities enable students to optimize their Emory experience by participating in formal and informal activities.
The coming and going of students and faculty about campus creates a more vibrant academic community.

New Freshman Complex: The 2005 update locates a new grouping of freshman residence halls just north of the Dobbs Center. Relocating the hospital laundry off-site creates a space for new residence halls on the north edge of McDonough Field. Trimble, Means and Longstreet Halls will be demolished; through phased construction, a new freshman residential quad will be built. McTyeire Hall will undergo renovation as part of this new complex. Freshman dining will continue to be served mainly from the Dobbs Center.

Second Year Experience: The Class of 2008 is the first required to live their sophomore year on campus. The Woodruff Residential Center is the center for the special programs serving this group of students. Sophomores will continue to be housed at Woodruff, Harris Hall, and the Complex. Further studies of second-year bed counts and room variety requirements are ongoing. Additional sophomore housing may be built on land currently used for Campus Services offices and shops.

Upperclass housing: The Clairmont Campus apartments are very popular with upperclass undergraduates. Additional upperclass housing is possible in the core of campus through renovation and addition to Dobbs Hall. With the addition of an academic center on the site between Dobbs and the soccer field, this area could become a special live-learn on-campus opportunity.

Faculty/staff housing: The neighborhoods surrounding Emory have become more costly as Atlanta has grown into a metropolitan area. As a result, young faculty and staff often are forced to live farther from the campus. The increased commute brings more traffic, creates the need for more parking, and discourages spending off-hours on campus. One solution is to develop reasonably priced faculty and staff housing near campus with Emory-supported financing. The Briarcliff Campus is one opportune site for locating a variety of housing types for Emory staff and faculty.

Academic and Administrative Space
The academic and administrative precinct is planned to flow through the central core of campus from Dowman Drive to Clifton Road with the following projects:

Multidisciplinary Science Facilities: Emory is becoming one of the foremost research universities in the world. To continue this transformation, new or upgraded multidisciplinary science facilities are needed. They include a new psychology building (120,000 GSF) and a large addition (80,000 GSF) to the Atwood Chemistry Center. The proposed sites for these buildings would allow students and faculty to walk easily from building to building and into the Emerson Center and the Math & Science Center. By organizing the buildings as a woven unit, the physical and natural science core encourages academic collaboration and student exploration of science career opportunities. Providing gathering spaces with study, dining and display themes further strengthens social interaction within the science community.

New psychology building: The site is created by the demolition of two obsolete residence halls, Gilbert and Thomson, and the relocation of the entrance road from North Oxford over their existing building footprints. By moving the road to the north, sufficient land area is created between the road and the north side of the Atwood Center for the new building.

The psychology department is currently located in six buildings across campus. This consolidation will allow for expansion of other college units into the backfill space, thus allowing for academic growth.

Atwood chemistry addition: Built on the south side of the existing building and filling its existing courtyard, this facility will expand space for chemistry research. The existing auditorium wing will be demolished and reconstructed in the lower courtyard. Above it will be a public lobby and gathering space overlooking the garden area. The new main entry to the Atwood Complex will be visually axial to the length of Dowman Drive and will be the new front door to the chemistry department.

Emory University Library: The system is currently being studied for future facility growth, notably for the Manuscript, Archive & Rare Books Library and an expanded business library. The campus plan identifies the opportunity to build additions on the existing Woodruff Library terraces, as well as over the service yard. Removing the 1970s addition to the Rich Building may allow for creative roadway realignment and clear a site at the south end of Mizell Bridge for a new library building footprint or a site for the business school expansion.

New Academic Quad: Relocation of Emory Hospital to the east side of Clifton Road and demolition of all existing hospital structures (except the original 1922 building and its familiar 1948 facade) provides the ideal space for a new Academic Quad lined with buildings that can then be sited to mirror the east end of the main Quad. The original hospital building at the head of the new quad could become the University’s main administrative building, freeing the existing Administration Building for academic use at the terminus of the main Quad. All of these long-range opportunities reinforce thoughtful use of existing land for future academic growth without having to expand beyond Emory’s campus.

Other Initiatives: The University is in the early stages of plans for the Briarcliff Campus, as well as beginning a master plan for the Oxford campus. Moreover, it is conceivable that, to corral the needs of the international dimensions of the strategic plan or to ensure the enhancement of graduate studies on campus, Emory may add space. Also, planning for a religious life center is in the works, adjacent to Glenn Auditorium, to support student and academic programs.

Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC)
The WHSC is a hybrid organization with core missions of education, research and health care delivery. Its components include the School of Medicine, the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, Rollins School of Public Health, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare. This integration of health sciences and health care delivery presents Emory with a unique opportunity and responsibility. By 2015, the strategic plan calls for Emory to be recognized as one of the top 10 academic health sciences centers and to have created new health care facilities designed to deliver care in bold new ways. This vision is reflected in the Campus Master Plan 2005 Update through a realignment of WHSC facilities.

School of Medicine Administration and Education Building: When it opens in 2007, the new building will for the first time house medical school classes, study areas and administration in one facility. Taking advantage of an opportunity, the curriculum is being redesigned, the school culture is becoming more community oriented with new group study, lounge, and quiet areas scattered throughout the complex. New teaching technologies are being incorporated into this 24-hour facility as traditional boundaries are redefined.

Clifton Road Redevelopment Project: The 1998 campus plan deferred an important decision about the outdated hospital building. Subsequent studies confirmed the need for a new hospital, and this need became a major opportunity in the Strategic Plan. The Clifton Road Redevelopment Project is a cornerstone of the Campus Master Plan 2005 Update. Realizing that existing older facilities limit the opportunity for system development of health care delivery, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center created a new “Vision 2012.” Its core concept is to relocate and grow all health care delivery systems on the east side of Clifton Road. Emory Hospital, The Emory Clinic and some related research components would be relocated and consolidated into one well-organized facility on the site of the present clinic buildings.

Reflecting the notion that 21st century health care will more closely integrate research, teaching and patient care, the concept of “translational healthcare” is leading to new approaches in the ways in which patient services are delivered. Emory’s concept is an integrated facility organized around Centers of Excellence, with associated research functions co-located around a state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment chassis, topped with a 700-bed hospital.

Various studies have informed a proposed phasing concept that first relocates The Emory Clinic operation, with associated research to create Centers of Excellence. Following this, construction of the diagnosis and treatment chassis and hospital would rise on the site. This complex design must accommodate potential growth, including new Centers and hospital beds.

The complexity and scale of the Clifton Road Redevelopment Project presents significant challenges. These include context-sensitive urban design and transportation. Further studies under way in 2005–06 are examining program feasibility, site constraints, transportation, circulation, parking and service delivery components, as well as financial models. These analyses may have implications for changed traffic patterns on Clifton Road and Haygood/Ridgewood Roads and are also tied to the upcoming replacement of the bridge over the CSX tracks, where realignment of Clifton also is being studied. The size and scale of the Clifton Road Redevelopment Project regarding health care services will require improvement and expansion in automobile access to the health care services operations.

In addition to providing the opportunity for a 21st century health care facility, relocating Emory Hospital to the site across Clifton Road now occupied by Emory Clinic buildings would allow the existing hospital site to accommodate expansion of the University’s academic facilities for decades to come.

Rollins School of Public Health expansion: The internationally recognized Rollins school continues to expand its research and teaching base. Taking advantage of the school’s Clifton Road location near the CDC, the 2005 update identifies the building site for a large expansion project. This project includes the development of new collaborative research opportunities with the School of Medicine for international initiatives.

The footprint for the new building will be created by the relocation of existing mechanical cooling towers and the Rollins Way entrance from Houston Mill Road. Bridging at upper levels will provide connectivity to the existing public health building, the Rollins Research Building and the Michael Street parking deck. Rework at grade level of the existing building base definition of the Rollins School will open the area up to a human scale. Also it will provide a clear pedestrian and visual connection to the bridge over the railroad tracks connecting to core campus areas.

New Yerkes research building: The site planning for the Neurosciences Research Building, completed in 2004, accommodated another building location and increased parking. The success of Yerkes predicts that this new research building will happen sooner than later.

Emory in the Region
As a premier research and educational institution, Emory plays a substantial role in the Atlanta region, contributing about $4.2 billion annually to the metropolitan economy. On a direct basis, Emory provides employment and procures goods and services from area businesses. Together, Emory and Emory Healthcare wield an annual operating budget exceeding $2.2 billion. More than 22,000 full-time employees earn compensation totaling nearly $1.3 billion in salary and benefits.

Student buying power and spending by Emory visitors adds up, too. Emory’s 11,500 students spend approximately $40 million on non-discretionary items. Each year, Emory hosts an estimated 1.6 million day-trippers and nearly 700,000 overnight visitors; collectively they spend about $110 million locally. Emory’s campus improvements—roughly $90 million this fiscal year—deliver separate construction-related economic benefits. Direct economic impacts attributable to the Emory system thus total about $2.45 billion.

But Emory’s economic role in metro Atlanta goes beyond direct spending and employment as money cycles through the local economy and when one factors in Emory’s construction activity. Measured broadly, indirect activity totals as much as $1.75 billion, making Emory’s contribution annually to the local economy total an impressive $4.2 billion.

Transportation, Parking and Infrastructure
Transportation: Making campus roadways more efficient is a vital part of the 2005 update. The rework of the Dowman Drive intersection at N. Decatur Road into a roundabout through the efforts of Dekalb County and the Alliance to Improve Emory Village will significantly change the current entrance to campus. Dowman Drive will become one way in through the original Emory Gate, and existing parking on Dowman between South Kilgo and Fishburne Road will be removed, re-establishing the historic experience of passing through Baker Woods onto campus.

Extending the pedestrian campus by relocating two portions of key campus roadway not only will assist in way-finding, but also will provide an opportunity to route shuttles around the pedestrian core of campus and facilitate removing them from the pedestrian portion of Asbury Circle.

Another aspect of the Campus Master Plan 2005 Update is to remove street parking from Fraternity Row and build new bicycle lanes and sidewalks along the road. These bike lanes would ultimately provide linkage via Peavine Creek Drive and Starvine Way to the edges of campus, where they could join proposed new DeKalb County initiatives for bike paths.

Parking: Parking inventory on the west side of Clifton Road will remain in balance. The new parking deck behind B. Jones will offset surface parking removed from Dowman Drive and other campus locations.

In summer 2007, CHOA will open a new deck on the east side of Clifton Road that in turn frees more available parking in the Michael Street and Clairmont decks. This will help offset Dekalb County parking requirements for planned new construction. Other traffic demand management measures will be adopted to make up the parking difference.

Parking requirements east of Clifton Road will be determined as part of the Clifton Road Redevelopment Project feasibility study. Conceptually, some or all of the existing Emory parking decks in the area (Lowergate, Lowergate South, Scarborough and the Steel Deck) may be demolished and replaced with underground parking, much like the current CHOA project.

Infrastructure: Feasibility studies for each new capital building project include an assessment of utility capacity connections. The Emory Infrastructure Master Plan will identify capacity concerns as well as energy needs for heating, cooling and electricity for the next 15 years of construction. The campus plan will need to site new cooling plants required for any additional capital construction; existing cooling plants and cooling towers have little additional capacity. A campus Storm Water Management Plan also will be completed.

Conclusion
Emory’s vision is to make the world better for our children’s children; that vision begins with maximizing our physical space. The Campus Master Plan 2005 Update continues the strong principles adopted in 1998 that are re-knitting the University’s designed and natural settings and shaping a campus that encourages interaction among students and faculty and that welcomes visitors. The 2005 Update is also a demonstration of Emory’s continuing commitment to support the integrity of adjoining neighborhoods. The 2005 Update thoughtfully accommodates growth without having to expand the land territory of the campus. Using proven design considerations of smart growth and environmental sustainability, Emory can achieve the quality of place worthy of a destination university.

TOP