A long-range plan presented to members of the Arizona Board of Regents Friday would more than double the amount of building space on campus, while reducing the number of parking spaces by 5,000.

UA's Comprehensive Campus Plan would increase building space to 19.5 million square feet from the current 9.4 million, largely by replacing many surface parking lots with buildings. Current campus growth boundaries would not change.

Once the space is increased, it would allow the university to accommodate 40,000 students, 5,000 more than are currently enrolled. That's the maximum that planners believe UA can accommodate without expanding its physical boundaries.

Planners told regents the university needs to increase its space because it is already short 2.5 million square feet, including 400,000 square feet of research space and 280,000 square feet of academic offices.

If enrollment grows to 40,000, that shortage would become 7.5 million square feet.

President Pete Likins has said UA can't expand outward because it sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

"We need to understand what our physical space limitations are," Likins told the regents during their Friday meeting.

Much of the additional space would come by replacing surface parking lots with garages. The 11 new garages proposed would hold 12,000 cars.

"The surface parking is taking up a huge amount of land," said Adam Gross, a principal with Ayers Saint Gross, the Maryland-based firm hired to construct the campus plan.

Surface parking takes up roughly the same space on campus as the entire Mall area, said Gross, who called asphalt parking lots an "irresponsible" use of land.

The plan also calls for stepped-up alternative transportation methods, including neighborhood shuttles, remote park-and-ride, bicycle improvements and ride sharing.

Paul Mackey, a neighborhood resident who has worked on the plan, asked regents and UA officials to include more parking spaces in the plan to prevent cars from spilling into neighborhoods.

"In view of this impending situation, we request the university take more initiative and exercise stronger leadership in addressing this problem," Mackey wrote in a letter to Likins and Board of Regents President Jack Jewett.

Though most local residents who spoke to the regents said they were happy with the plan in general, some also said they were concerned that an increased student population could cause more students to move into their neighborhoods.

"Honestly, that has significance for the surrounding neighborhoods," Mackey said.

Former neighborhood resident Sandra Katz told regents that when she lived near UA, students living nearby regularly urinated and vomited in area yards.

"We had to call the police probably every other night," Katz said.

The plan calls for providing up to 3,700 new beds on campus, which would accommodate undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff. But some residents asked the university to go farther, requiring freshmen to live on campus or preventing them from having cars.

"I'm afraid that (neighborhood) overcrowding will become like the housing projects in Chicago or St. Louis," said Katz, who now lives in a gated community in the Catalina Foothills.

Planners also proposed a Mall-like greenbelt extending across the Arizona Health Sciences Center, and placing a green buffer zone around the entire campus.

The north-south greenbelt would connect new research buildings north of East Speedway Boulevard. Planners said they wanted to replicate the effect of the Mall at the Arizona Health Sciences Center, which lacks much open space.

They also hope that an attractive setting would prompt researchers to leave their own buildings to talk with people housed in nearby buildings. That idea reflects a commitment to collaboration among researchers that UA officials say could help increase the university's prestige.

"It's not just an architectural plan but very much a pedagogical plan · that gets people out of their silos," Gross said.

Planners also proposed adding more than 80,000 square feet of student activity space, as well as 14 new recreational fields.

The plan has no timeframe, and is not meant to be binding. But regents still said they were excited about the possibilities.

"I know this is just the guidelines, but it's a super guideline," said Regent Robert Bulla.

The proposal was the result of three years of planning and about 100 meetings with community members. Though it hasn't met with total approval from area residents, UA administrators said they're happy with the reaction it's received.

"No matter what we do, no one's 100 percent satisfied," said Joel Valdez, senior vice president for business affairs.