City Council hears details of DePauw campus projects
While DePauw University wants the City of Greencastle to close College Avenue between Hanna and Olive streets, that’s only one piece of an ambitious project that will radically change the south end of the campus over the next five years.
“A lot of dominoes are part of this, not just the closing of College Street,” Mayor Bill Dory said Thursday night before introducing Warren Whitesell, associate vice president of facilities management at DePauw, who guided city officials through a two-hour look at how the project might unfold.
Whitesell was joined for his appearance before a work session of the City Council -- where no decisions and no promises were made -- by engineer Jennifer Lash of Cripe Engineering, Indianapolis, the firm that has undertaken the DePauw capital projects plan. No additional property is being acquired by the university for these projects.
“The foremost thing people will see,” Whitesell began, will be a new 150-bed, first-year student dormitory to be built at the southwest corner of Locust and Olive streets, a site currently occupied by a parking lot for Humbert Hall.
It is to be the first phase of a project that will then see Hogate Hall (at Locust and Howard streets) razed and replaced by another new dorm. Following the Hogate demolition, Humbert Hall and Bishop Roberts Hall will see the same fate. After they are taken down and replaced, Longden Hall will meet its demise.
The project will take five buildings in which first-year students currently reside and replace them with four four-story structures, resulting in a first-year dormitory capacity of 650 students that exceeds the current 560-580 limit.
“There’s a host of things this is doing for us,” Whitesell said, noting the DPU project will “create a more cohesive and connected campus community.”
In building facilities that are attractive and sustainable, Whitesell said DePauw hopes to provide an “experience of distinction” for its first-year students.
The five-year project also includes the extension of Burkhart Walk, the pedestrian corridor that currently runs north and south between Seminary and Hanna street. DePauw is asking the city to close the portion of College Avenue between Hanna and Olive to accommodate that extension. That closure would eliminate 22 parking spaces along South College.
As usual with any DePauw facilities project, parking was one issue on city officials’ minds. Whitesell tried to alleviate those fears by noting that once the entire project is complete, the campus will see an overall net gain in parking spaces. It’s getting there, however, that has city officials concerned.
After all, when construction begins this summer on the first dorm (due to be completed in time for classes in fall 2020), it will eliminate the 42 spaces in the Humbert Hall lot.
To help compensate for that loss, DePauw plans to expand the parking lot south of Hogate Hall that borders the old Delta Chi house property on South Locust.
Once all construction is complete, College Street Hall (the old Lambda Chi house at College and Olive) is scheduled to be demolished and turned into a parking lot to serve the Performing Arts Center and the Lilly Center. Its current 31 spots will become 116 when the building is taken down.
Whitesell said the “grand scheme” has been to remove College Street Hall as part of the fifth and final phase of the project, allowing it to serve as “emergency swing space” for student housing while the other dorms are under construction.
However, to allay public fears over exacerbating campus parking problems, Councilman Gary Lemon was blunt about the proposed DPU timetable.
“The College Street Hall parking lot needs to be the first thing, not the last thing,” he stressed.
Councilman Dave Murray agreed.
“You need to find a way to bring College Street Hall down first,” he said, alluding to a need to provide additional parking in the area during construction.
Council President Adam Cohen said he would like to see “some type of assurance” that additional off-street parking spaces are indeed coming. “Otherwise,” he said, “all that PAC (Performing Arts Center) stuff is still in the neighborhood.”
Whitesell indicated DePauw may guide some students to the athletic field parking lots, calling it a “cell phone concept” with student parking west of Jackson Street, several blocks from their housing.
“That’s been proposed to us before,” Cohen responded, adding simply, “it’s not going to happen.”
Lemon agreed.
“I know my students,” the DePauw economics professor said. “If this were IU, they’d be happy to park within a half-mile. But at DePauw, half a block is too far.”
DePauw also plans to widen Olive Street as part of the project to allow for parking along both sides of the street and to accommodate buses like the ones that bring the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and other entertainment acts or sport teams to town. To do so, it will extend the street south into what is now sidewalk and green space on DPU property.
What some city officials would like to see the university do with Olive Street is to extend the street west to connect with South Jackson Street, cutting through the adjacent parking lot where there are already islands and curbing or by following the maintenance access road near its physical plant.
“I would like to see the maintenance road made into a full-fledged street to take Olive all the way out to Jackson,” Councilman Steve Fields said, later adding that he was concerned about people living along South College Avenue, south of Olive, and how it might be difficult for them to navigate the drive toward the downtown if and when College is closed.
“I like the idea of taking Olive all the way over to Jackson,” Councilman Murray agreed.
“And DePauw would be paying for the new road?” City Attorney Laurie Hardwick asked.
“That’s not in the plan right now,” Whitesell responded.
Council President Cohen, who resides on Park Street in the area in question and knows he can already cut through to Jackson Street, wasn’t optimistic about the extension idea.
“Realistically, I don’t see that happening,” he said, worried that allowing another access onto an already dangerous and congested area of South Jackson would be imprudent.
Mayor Dory noted that there is already a route through the DePauw parking lot that can be followed from Olive to Jackson.
Lash noted that the project will extend and expand Olive over to South Indiana Street, which is now a two-way street that can provide a northbound route in that area.
She also noted that the preliminary utility work, particularly along South Locust Street where new heating and chiller lines will be run under the street, will be done first and likely begin at the end of April.
The request to close College Avenue, meanwhile, will require action at two City Council meetings, one with a public hearing and first reading on vacating the roadway and a second meeting to adopt the street vacation. That could possibly start at the March meeting (7 p.m. Thursday, March 14) if the project can be legally advertised in time. Second reading could then occur in April.
“The only thing we’re asking you for is permission,” Whitesell said, indicating that all the utilities work and road construction would be at DePauw’s cost.
Councilman Lemon asked what the city might gain from all of it.
“I’m John Q. Public and I know it’s good for DePauw,” he said. “What’s in it for the city?”
Besides a net increase in off-street parking in the campus area, Whitesell said a new storm sewer put in by DePauw will assist the city with remedying flooding issues in the Hanna, College and Indiana street area and improve stormwater management.
The proposed storm sewer work is “a significant investment” by DePauw, the mayor agreed.
“I don’t see any detriment,” Whitesell added in reference to the overall project.
Lemon noted that when the city closed the section of College Avenue between Hanna and Seminary streets back in the 1990s, it was accompanied by a $100,000 donation by DePauw to the city.
“The public says, ‘Where’s my money?’” Lemon said. “‘You’re buying land from me.’
“I’m Jerry Maguire,” he added to chuckles at the notion of a “Show-me-the-money”chant. “I don’t want to hear ‘It’s coming’ or the ‘Check’s in the mail.’”
City Attorney Hardwick reminded the Council that the city is not selling the land but vacating the property, which would be divided among property owners along either side (DePauw in both cases).
Mayor Dory said he has sent a letter to DePauw President Mark McCoy asking for “a significant contribution” toward the new pumper fire truck the city will get this fall and the future purchase of a new aerial truck. Usually, he noted, things like that have to go before the DPU Board of Trustees.
Cohen said he would like to see a figure disclosed before the City Council is asked to vote on the street closure.
“Oh, it’s got to come before,” Lemon stressed, suggesting the potential donation number be made known if possible by March 1.
“Just for clarity,” Mayor Dory noted, other businesses and citizens have asked for street closings or alley vacations in the past. And none of them has ever been asked to donate money because of it.
“That we do nothing to hurt city residents trumps everything else for me,” Councilman Cohen said.
No action was taken on the subject at the work session Thursday. Whether or not the matter will be on the Council’s March agenda depends on complying with the proper legal advertising deadlines.