Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1956 [PAGE 1076]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1956]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

I073

acquisition would be consistent with previous exceptions; use of this farm land a s a campus for the University of Illinois Chicago Undergraduate Division will be a desirable public use, while purchase of this land by the University will enable the District to acquire other lands more suitable for recreational purposes. Selection of a suburban site was endorsed in February, 1955, by a committee of the University of Illinois Alumni Association which had also been studying the matter. At approximately the same time a suburban site was endorsed, in principle, by the Executive Committee of the Chicago Plan Commission. The formal report of the Committee follows and I concur in the recommendation that steps be taken for the acquisition of the G. A. Miller Meadow as the permanent site for the Chicago Undergraduate Division. Report on the Selection of a Permanent Site for the Relocation of the Chicago Undergraduate Division /. Introduction The Board of Trustees has approved for planning purposes the development of a permanent site for the Chicago Undergraduate Division as one means by which the University could take care of its share of the anticipated doubled enrollment. This increase, predicted for the nation as a whole, is projected on statistics for children already born. T h e Trustees' action was based on the studies and the recommendations of a University Committee and concurred in by the University Council (composed of deans, directors, and other administrative officers). The University Committee, in arriving at these conclusions, recognized that: A. Approximately 53 per cent of the population of the state of Illinois resides in Cook County. B. For a number of years, approximately one-half of the students registered in the University of Illinois have listed Cook County as their residence. C. Educational facilities for commuting students will eliminate the need for constructing student housing facilities which would be required at UrbanaChampaign. D. There is now a two-year undergraduate division of over 4,000 students at Navy Pier in Chicago. T h e city wishes these facilities returned for its own imperative needs. They can not well care for more than 4,500 students. It seems necessary, therefore, that permanent facilities be provided promptly. Two other independent studies also reached the same general conclusions, namely, those submitted by a Commission created by the Sixty-eighth General Assembly and a Committee of the Alumni Association. Based on the anticipated increase in student enrollment and the planned capacity on the Urbana-Champaign campus, permanent facilities for 8,000 students will be needed by 1963 in a two-year program at the Chicago Undergraduate Division. Studies were, therefore, undertaken for the establishment of criteria on the selection of a permanent site. //. Site Selection A. Although an unlimited number of sites can be evaluated, in practice the number is limited. The first step necessary for the selection of a site was the determination of the type of building to be constructed: low rise (not more than four stories and basement), medium rise (five to nine stories), and high rise (ten or more stories). The University Committee has evaluated the three types of buildings on three broad bases: educational and functional principles, construction costs, and maintenance and operation costs. In each case, the Committee found the low rise building to be the preferred type and recommends that the Chicago Undergraduate Division campus of the University of Illinois be developed predominantly with low rise buildings except where functional requirements may dictate otherwise. B. The University Committee, after a two-year study with the aid of the Real Estate Research Corporation of Chicago, established sixteen criteria, five of which had to be met in order for an area to be considered as an acceptable site for the relocation and development of the Chicago Undergraduate Division. A great number of sites were inventoried; thirty-nine met the five minimum criteria. The latter were studied with great care and, as a result, the