But UD officials say the school is going through a financial planning process and a new campus masterplan won’t come until later and will take time.
“Full transparency: We’re talking at least two years before we would have a brand new campus master plan,” said Rick Krysiak Jr., UD’s vice president for facilities management and planning.
UD currently is developing a new medical building in the 1700 block of Brown Street, which is part of a joint venture with Water Street District developers Woodard Development and Crawford Hoying. Premier Health will be the anchor tenant.
UD also began construction earlier this year on the $43 million Roger Glass Center for the Arts, which is at the southeast corner of Main and Stewart streets and could be finished in late 2023. The school also plans to start a major renovation of its science center later this year.
Chaminade Hall was the former home to the school of education. The 118-year-old, 60,000-square-foot building has been mostly unused since the school of education relocated to Fitz Hall in 2014.
A committee was formed in 2018 to study potential reuse or demolition options for Chaminade Hall, but no decisions have been made at this time, UD officials said.
Looking ahead to the next three to seven years, UD is interested in possibly bringing new buildings to surface parking lots at Brown and Stewart streets, Schmidt said.
UD officials later said there are no plans for the parking lots at this time, and the school is simply land-banking the properties and they are a lower priority. Officials said the lots could support future development and growth if the need arises.
Schmidt said the lots at that location are too valuable to the urban grid to allow them to remain as parking. He said the properties could be converted into a mixed-use development similar to University Place, located a block to the north.
University Place has upstairs apartments and first-floor commercial spaces occupied by businesses like El Rancho Grande, Bibibop Asian Grill and Potbelly Sandwich Shop.
UD also would like to see five acres of empty land at Patterson Boulevard and Stewart Street redeveloped, possibly into research-oriented partner buildings, similar to a few nearby facilities, Schmidt said.
The site is just north of the GE Aviation Electrical Power Integrated Systems Center (EPISCenter) where UD students and faculty work alongside engineers and researchers.
The property also is near the Helix Innovation Center, where students and faculty collaborate with Emerson workers on research and innovations in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration industry.
That land is “not just going to be sold out to any developer who wants to come put in an office building,” Schmidt said. “It’s got to have a critical tie to the university.”
UD would like to attract a research and development partner that complements the Helix center and EPISCenter and provides experiential learning opportunities, UD officials said.
UD also expects to continue to work toward redeveloping the former Montgomery County Fairgrounds property.
OnMain, a joint venture between UD and Premier Health, seeks to completely transform the 38-acre site into a variety of uses.
The university does not need a new residence hall right now, Schmidt said, but the school wants to make sure a potential housing project is part of the planning process in case that changes.
UD’s student population is growing, recently increasing to 12,028 total undergraduate and graduate students.
UD has increased the size of its campus by nearly 60% since 2009, and much of the growth came from the school’s purchase of 49 acres from NCR in 2005 and 110 additional acres in 2011.
UD owns facilities on 423 acres of land in the local area, which is up from 270 acres in 2009.
The university hasn’t had a new campus masterplan since 2008. However, UD officials have appeared before the Dayton Plan Board multiple times to request approvals for land use plans for major projects like the EPISCenter and Helix center.
After UD gave a presentation about its potential facilities priorities, Dayton Plan Board member Matt Sauer said he’d like UD to develop a new masterplan as soon as possible to lay out the school’s vision for its campus.
He said he thinks a few of UD’s more recent projects have a suburban feel, which is not ideal given their locations.
Dayton Plan Board member Greg Scott said if UD redevelops the parking lots at Brown and Stewart streets, it would need to address the loss of parking.
Residential neighborhoods by the campus already have issues with students taking up street parking spaces that residents and homeowners depend on, he said.
Schmidt said he agreed that the redevelopment of those sites would need to include parking plans.
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