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ON RICHMOND'S HORIZON VCU'S GROWING FOOTPRINT
DEVELOPMENT 'SNOWBALL' KEEPS ROLLING AS UNIVERSITY'S EXPANSION HELPS REDEFINE DOWNTOWN
Richmond Times - Dispatch - Richmond, Va.
Author: Gary Robertson
Copyright Richmond Newspapers, Incorporated Nov 20, 2005
Virginia Commonwealth University has seen explosive growth in the last 15 years -- and will see even more in the next 15 years. Today, The Times-Dispatch focuses on the VCU area in our continuing look at development in downtown Richmond.
Jim Dunn, president of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, sometimes speaks in metaphors.
Metaphorically is one way he thinks about Virginia Commonwealth University and the critical role the university and its president, Eugene P. Trani, have played in the life of Richmond.
Trani, who came to VCU in 1990, got the ball rolling on downtown development, Dunn said.
"Now it's a snowball that's caught on fire."
When they think of VCU's transformation, many university observers point to 1998 as a watershed year. That is when VCU's long- sought engineering school opened at West Main and Belvidere streets. At a cost of $38 million, it was high-dollar with even higher expectations.
The expectations seem to have been exceeded.
This month, the university broke ground on Phase II of the engineering school, which is expected to cost $41.8 million. It will rise on the university's new Monroe Park campus addition, an 11- acre swath east of Belvidere between Main and Canal streets.
Joining the engineering school will be an expanded business school, costing $42.4 million. The schools, linked by an atrium and student commons, will be served by an 800-vehicle underground parking garage. All are slated to open in fall 2007.
That campus addition also will house the university's award- winning graduate school of advertising, the Adcenter. Its programs will move into the historic Central Belting building on Jefferson Street south of Cary Street.
The building, which once housed the carriages of guests at the Jefferson Hotel in the late 1800s, will be renovated at a cost of $7 million.
Over time, an executive conference center and housing for 800 students also are to be built on the site.
* * *
Since he became president, Trani has worked to make the university, long known as a commuter college, more student- centered.
"The key sea change at VCU has been on-campus housing. In the past five years we've doubled it," said Brian Ohlinger, associate vice president for facilities management.
The university now has beds for approximately 5,000 students. The total climbed this year when VCU opened the Brandt Hall high-rise dormitory at 701 W. Franklin St. to house more than 600 students.
As VCU's student population has grown, Ohlinger said, private developers have rushed in to provide additional housing. Among other projects, developers have turned the headquarters of a former towing service, a paper mill and a furniture factory into apartments.
But VCU knows it needs to provide more of its own housing.
The university's long-range plans envision a Greek row and other student housing along West Grace between Shafer and Laurel streets. The town-house buildings would be architecturally compatible with the neighborhood and would have retail space on the ground floor.
Other student housing would be built along Franklin Street, on the site of the existing Franklin Street Gym.
More students mean more cars, and an 1,000-space parking deck is slated for West Grace and Belvidere streets. At its upper levels, the deck would span Grace Street and form a gateway to the campus.
Today's college students not only are looking for upgraded housing and easier parking but a place to gather and hang out with friends, university officials say. They also want something better than cafeteria food.
These desires, along with a rapidly growing student body, prompted VCU to expand its student commons and build the Shafer Court Dining Center. The center has won design awards and raves from students for the food variety and the made-to-order meals cooked by university chefs.
A $47 million student recreation center also is in the works. When the center is built, the Siegel Center complex on Broad Street would be taken over by the university's athletic teams.
Many other projects, including the multimillion renovation of the Hibbs Building, a former dining hall, also are planned.
* * *
For Trani, preaching the gospel of life sciences has become a mission.
"The 21st century is the century of life sciences," he said in a recent interview.
In 2001, the university opened the $28 million Eugene and Lois E. Trani Center for Life Sciences at the corner of Cary and Harrison streets. A second life-sciences building is planned nearby on what is now tennis courts.
Trani's vision is to turn the portion of Cary Street running through VCU into a science alley, with facilities for life sciences, physics, chemistry and engineering.
All those enterprises, Trani said, will be interacting with VCU's rapidly expanding medical center and elements of the Virginia Biotechnology Park, forming what is envisioned as an incubator for scientific inquiry.
* * *
Monroe Park, the city of Richmond's oldest park, has been receiving a lot of attention from VCU, and it will get more.
The university has made the park accessible to wireless devices, installed a new underground sprinkler system and provided landscaping. Later, the university plans to work with the city to make other improvements, such as a covered stage and band shell.
By 2007, nearly 3,500 students will be living either on the edge of the park or within a block of it.
The university also has let neighbors know that an "area of future consideration" is a tract bordered by Broad, Madison, Grace and Belvidere streets. The university has said it doesn't want to acquire all the property in that area but wants to develop it strategically in cooperation with the neighborhood.
The huge mixing bowl that has become VCU's downtown campus will likely be stirred a few more times before Trani, who at the request of the board of visitors has extended his contract twice, takes his final leave at the end of this decade.
TIMESDISPATCH.COM
* For more background: Go to www.TimesDispatch.com to view the first installment, which detailed 20 of the most visible downtown projects.
[Illustration]
MAP, DRAWING
Credit: Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Trani's vision is to turn the portion of Cary Street running through VCU into a science alley, with facilities for life sciences, physics, chemistry and engineering.
All those enterprises, Trani said, will be interacting with VCU's rapidly expanding medical center and elements of the Virginia Biotechnology Park, forming what is envisioned as an incubator for scientific inquiry.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.