Click the picture for a larger version of the campus plan.

Tree-lined grass walkways, flowing underpasses and overpasses and shaded courtyards have always been trademarks of university campuses.

The UA, nestled in the Sonoran desert, has never been known for these amenities.

As the university grew outside the confines of the Old Main driveway during the middle of the 20th century, the outskirts of campus started to look sparse, something UA officials now hope to change.

Fifteen years from now, if all goes as planned, the UAâs aesthetic plan for the future will be in full swing, and that plan will capitalize on the traditional images of university life.

Overall, this Comprehensive Campus Plan, drawn together by UA planners and an independent architectural firm, is an outline of where future buildings and complexes should be placed and will set out to utilize remaining open space.

In the past, UA built haphazardly, creating little islands of buildings.

This plan Overall, this Comprehensive Campus Plan, drawn together by UA planners and an independent architectural firm, is an outline of where future buildings and complexes should be placed and will set out to utilize remaining open space.

ãThe policy may discuss developing complexes of campus rather than putting in buildings individually,ä said UA university campus and environmental planner Susan Bartlett, one of those working on the plan.

goes beyond buildings, however, and strives to paint a picture of how the university will look to a student in 2020.

MATT CAPOWSKI/Arizona Summer Wildcat Construction scaffolding and chain link fences border Old Main. The massive construction underway illustrates the growth the university will continue to see over the next two decades.

Warp speed ahead

In the future, buildings will be built in groups with courtyards and grassy greens.

On the south end of campus, a long plot of land now filled with dirt between the Gould-Simpson and Biological Sciences West buildings, will make for lines of trees, outside study areas and a student services building, possibly a student union satellite.

The complex will be in conjunction with the nearby Highland Commons area currently being constructed just north of Sixth Street.

ãThe policy may discuss developing complexes of campus rather than putting in buildings individually,ä said UA university campus and environmental planner Susan Bartlett, one of those working on the plan.

Since the plan is more where buildings will go and how that area of campus will work and not about specific buildings, the costs are not known.

ãDreams donât cost anything,ä said Senior Vice President for Business Affairs Joel Valdez.

And students tend to agree that UA does need to become more ãdreamy,ä or imaginative, in its approach to growth.

ãWe definitely need more housing and more efficient use of space,ä said Jennifer Cannon, a finance senior.

Housing will come in many places, including additional residence halls directly south of Coronado Residence Hall and Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall, where Zone 1 lots currently sit.

The courtyard theme would be extended into this corner of campus ÷ this time possibly adding basketball courts. The expanded residence area would house about as many students as the Highland Commons area will ÷ more than 700.

In drafting the plan, officials have tried to anticipate rising enrollment; one estimate has pegged the UAâs undergraduate population at near 50,000 by 2020.

ãI donât know about future enrollment,ä Valdez said. ãThat was a consultant figure.

ãI have no idea, itâs too tough to tell. Departments will say they will grow tenfold, but thatâs speculation.ä

He also said that fiscally speaking it will be ãimpossibleä for housing to build the 50,000 units it would like.

Connecting the dots

A student of the future will live, work and play on a campus that will not only look different but one that will also be more connected.

Entrusted with the task of unifying the campus, the planners made connecting the Arizona Health Sciences Center to the section of campus south of Speedway Boulevard a top priority.

Since the distance from the center to the original UA Mall is about the same as the distance from the McKale Memorial Center to Old Main, the planners came up with the idea of a second Mall replacing Warren Avenue and a diagonal walkway connecting to the Mountain Avenue Underpass.

This makes the Health Sciences Center both the area of the plan with the most change and the area likely to be the first implemented, Bartlett said.

Connecting it better with the rest of the campus only makes sense, since several new buildings will be constructed north of Speedway Boulevard.

ãThe area north of Speedway is the most significant and will be applied first,ä Valdez said.

He said that a new building housing research branches from different medical and biology units will probably go up in the next two years on site of the Arizona International College, 1609 E. Helen St.

ãI do think the Health Sciences Center is a little isolated from the rest of campus,ä said Caroline Carrillo, a business management senior.

But with parking lots in places where buildings will need to expand, parking in 2020 will be dramatically different than now.

Eight major parking garages and several small parking decks adjacent to new and existing buildings will be constructed.

Currently, 60 percent of parking at UA is in surface parking lots. In the future, 90 percent of parking will be inside parking garages, said Patrick Kass, UA Parking and Transportation Services director.

That will switch, with more parking being located in garages and less in lots.

Right now PTS does not know how many cars UA will have to support in 2020, but next month officials plan to meet to address the issue.

Currently there is a space for one out of every four people to park at UA, and Kass believes that ratio will mostly stay the same.

ãThere is a limit on space on campus; you already see congestion,ä Kass said.

ãWe could build a huge parking deck, but if there is not enough space in that area it will cause congestion and that doesnât help customers.ä

The move to replace surface spaces with garage spaces is not a move to make more money, Kass said.

ãIt costs us five to 10 times more for garages and they are only being built to replace what is lost to construction,ä Kass said. ãGarages cost $11,000 a space to build and about $1,000 a year after that, and we charge $400 (for a parking permit),ä he said.

MATT CAPOWSKI/Arizona Summer Wildcat Education senior Nicole Russell relaxes on the grass in front of the Life Sciences South building Tuesday afternoon. Over the next fifteen years officials plan on adding more spaces like this to give the campus more of a community feeling.

Staying flexible

Even after it is presented to the Arizona Board of Regents early next year, the plan is not set in stone ÷ it is periodically reviewed and refined.

In fact, campus planners with the aid of consultants from the Baltimore-based architectural and planning firm Ayers Saint Gross, are updating the original plan adopted in 1988.

ãI donât think the life of an average student will be any different,ä Valdez said.

Some ideas such as faculty housing, which would have been located south of the Highland Parking Garage under construction, have been shelved, but are out of the picture.

ãThe initiative may not be funded, but (faculty housing) is still an option to be considered, there is no program right now so it is very much in doubt,ä Bartlett said.