In the Media
Hyde Park Herald - June 19, 2005

UC aims for community-friendly South Campus
By JEREMY ADRAGNA
Staff Writer

The University of Chicago held its first community meeting last week in an effort to design and build a new undergraduate dining hall and dormitory on vacant land near the corner of 61st Street and Ellis Avenue .

The meeting was an effort to take public input for designs of the new structure and a planned greenspace along 61st Street .

The building is one of five new projects that are a part of the university's South Campus Master Plan slated to be completed by 2008.

The new building will abut the existing Burton Judson Hall and include a small-scale convenience store and a retail dining facility that will be open to the public.

“What we're trying to do is to create a set of amenities that are mutually beneficial to the community as well. That's an area that we want your input,” Sonya Malunda said to attendees.

One of the most notable aspects of the larger development is a plan to set back all of the buildings by 30 feet from 61st Street, landscape the area and create what officials have called a “gateway” to the campus from the adjoining Woodlawn neighborhood.

The “gateway” design would extend between Cottage Grove and Dorchester Avenues along 61st Street .

Some one hand for the meeting expressed concern that bringing more students to the area would create problems for homeowners and that street parking could be difficult to find.

Officials announced that a traffic and parking study will be conducted to assess the impact of the new buildings.

“One of our planning goals is to build additional parking and infrastructure to support the university's redevelopment of the South Campus,” Malunda said.

Plans for the new residence hall call for an additional 900 beds, which officials say need to be replaced when ownership of the former Shoreland Hotel is officially turned over to developers in coming years. The building currently houses students and was sold by the university to a private developer in July 2004 to be converted into condominiums.

It was announced at the meeting that construction of one other project, a University of Chicago Hospitals parking structure, is underway near the corner of 61st Street and Drexel Avene and will likely be the first of the five projects to be completed.

Aside from the dining hall, dormitory and parking structure three other projects are slated to be built of the South Campus by 2008. Those developments are a garden along the Midway Plaisance between Ellis and Woodlawn Avenues, a retail and office building near the corner of 61st Street and Woodlawn Avenue , and the reuse of a long-vacant Illinois Bell building for office space at 6035 S. Kenwood Ave.