Overview:
The University's Master Plan

The University's 1999 Campus Master Plan set the direction for the foreseeable future in enhancing the teaching and learning facilities on campus. It identified near-term projects and was designed to accommodate ineveitable change.

Since 1999, the University has invested $600 million to construct new facilities north of the Midway Plaisance, including a new dormitory, an athletic center, and several new academic buildings. Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) and Women Business Enterprises (WBEs) accounted for 31% of the contracts.

We are now entering a phase where we will be making investments in new facilities on our property south of the Midway to 61st Street ("South Campus"), and in an area from 55th to 57th Street between University and Cottage Grove Avenues ("West Campus").

Our primary goal is to enhance our core missions of teaching, research, and patient care: maintaining the University's academic excellence and and providing the facilities and space important for top student and faculty recruitment. In addition, we wish to support growth in Woodlawn and be attentive to the specific concerns of our neighbors. To that end, our commitments to the community are to:

1. Maintain an open process with the community
    
   • All details for specific buildings will be presented as developed.
      
   • On-going dialogue will occur through community meetings, with updates available online and in a future community newsletter.
      
2. Provide construction opportunities to minority- and women-owned businesses, with priority to Woodlawn residents
    
3. Foster commercial and retail development that meets both campus and community needs
    
4. Open University parking lots to the public after hours and on weekends.

Plans for the South and West Campus are divided into two major phases: 1) projects that will be completed or under construction by 2008, and 2) longer-term projects to end or begin construction by 2020.

South Campus

Construction projects currently in progress for the campus south of the midway include:

• New parking structure, at 61st Street and Drexel Avenue
   
• Winter Garden on the midway, south of the new ice skating rink
   
• New residence hall at 61st Street and Ellis Avenue

For more information and more projects planned short-term and long-term, see South Campus plans, maps, and projects.

West Campus

Projects that will bring substantial development to the University's West Campus will include:

• Center for Biomedical Discovery, a 300,000-square-foot research building
   
• Pediatric emergency room adjacent to the new University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital
   
• Expansion of the capacity of the Joseph Regenstein Library
   
• Parking structure underneath Stagg Field that would add 600-800 spaces
   
• Extensive renovation of buildings housing the Physical Sciences Division, including the Searle Chemical Laboratory and the Research Institutes.

For more information, see West Campus plans, maps, and projects.