CMU Master Plan causes unrest among some

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With the unveiling of the proposed CMU
Master Plan several surprises were also revealed.
The plan, presented at the March 17 Board of Trustees
meeting, calls for the demolition of the Special Olympics Michigan building
and the eventual closing of Preston Street between Franklin and Washington
streets.
Lois Arnold, director of the SOMI building, found out
about the proposed plan when one of her employees heard about it on the
radio.
“The day that it came out in the newspaper there was
also a radio station reporting some of the master plan and one of our
employees heard that on the radio. So when they came in, they said, ‘So,
they’re tearing down our building, huh?’ I had no idea what they were
talking about so it was quite a surprise.”
Arnold said she called Chief Financial Officer Kim
Ellertson, to whom she reports. Ellertson was not available until the
following day, but Arnold was able to talk with Executive Assistant to
the President Jan Wagester.
“(Wagester) assured me that the university did not
want to kick Special Olympics off campus.”
The plan suggests possibly relocating Special Olympics,
but Arnold said, “for our board of directors, we’re going to need to know
a little bit more than that. Obviously I’m concerned about that. We had
thought that was a nice partnership with the university and we’d like
to maintain that. We’re going to have to sit down and talk about what
our future holds.”
On Sunday, Jean Lindley, Master Development Planning
Committee chair and senior officer for Facilities Management/CMU Police,
said she explained to Arnold that not all recommendations on the proposed
master plan will take place, as has been the case with previous master
plans.
“I hope she understands that this is not something
that is going to take place immediately,” Lindley said. “I think as human
beings we don’t care much for surprises and I felt very badly (about not
informing Arnold ahead of time).”
According to the plan, demolishing the building would
allow CMU to be more of a presence on Mission Street.
“I think that’s nice,” Arnold said. “But that’s really
devastating to us.”
In 1988, Bill 4024 transferred the parcel of land now
occupied by Special Olympics, which was owned by the Michigan Department
of Transportation, to CMU for $1, which Arnold said was paid by a member
of the SOMI Board of Directors. The MDOT building on the parcel was renovated
for $700,000 to house SOMI and a 20-year contract with CMU was signed.
SOMI paid the university back for the renovation costs over an eight-year
period.
SOMI is its own entity. It has its own Board of Directors
and raises all of its own money, but because it is integrated into the
university and employees are CMU staff, it must pay yearly overhead costs.
The total cost to be paid to the university for 1999-2000 was $90,897.
“We pay for the services we get,” Arnold said.
“It’s their building. This is their property. I think
we’re at the mercy of Central.”
Arnold said there is such a tremendous number of people
who work with SOMI, including CMU staff, faculty and students, that she
couldn’t give an exact figure.
“We need to find out what the university’s intentions
are,” she said. “It would be my hope that they would consider relocating
us in a brand new building and that would be wonderful, even if it’s a
shared space.”
Lindley said she will call Arnold this week and ask
whether or not she would like to hold a formal meeting to discuss the
proposed master plan in more detail.
Arnold said SOMI has had a good partnership with CMU
over the years, including support for the administration, “especially
in previous years.” When the late Russ Herron worked in Community Relations,
there was more communication, she said.
“We have eight years left with our contract here. I
don’t have as much contact recently with the department I work with. When
Russ Herron was here we had monthly staff meetings. We were brought in
more to the mainstream to know what was happening on campus. That communication
hasn’t been as good.”
Arnold and her staff report to the Business and Finance
office and she said working with Ellertson has been positive.
“He’s always very kind and says he is supportive, but
we just haven’t been in the loop as much.”
Partnering with CMU in the future is a possibility
Arnold said she is not sure Special Olympics will take.
“I’m not so sure we want to invest a huge amount of
money again, to set ourselves up again,” she said.
Enhancing the environment of CMU is a positive endeavor
for many, Arnold said, including Special Olympics, as CMU plays host to
SOMI State Summer Games and other events.
“I would hope that the $700,000 we spent to renovate
the building would not be a waste,” she said. “It’s (the renovation and
overhead costs) just a lot of money to pay and not be included in their
future plans. It’s a little discouraging.”
Director of Planning and Community Development for
Mount Pleasant Tony Kulick, said he was made aware of the proposed plan
after reading about it in the newspaper.
“No one has contacted the city,” he said.
Kulick said Lindley, who is on the city Planning Commission,
may have mentioned something about the plan to him, but he wasn’t sure.
“I did tell Tony and indicated that we would be very
happy to have him come to our last (committee) meeting. Tony certainly
was aware that we were doing the master plan. Hopefully, this next week
I will be able to set up a meeting with the city so we can review things,”
Lindley said.
“I guess I would have thought that it may have been
appropriate to have some city input on the master plan while they were
developing it, but that didn’t happen,” Kulick said.
He said the Mount Pleasant Planning Commission had
a request from the university last year asking it to look at the possibility
of closing Preston Street. Traffic counts were conducted on Preston, Washington
and Franklin streets and East Campus and West Campus drives.
“That request to close Preston Street would be very,
very disruptive to traffic movement in the city of Mount Pleasant,” he
said.
“We have congestion problems taking place on campus
now and as soon as you start cutting off more east and west roads across
campus it could certainly add to that congestion problem.
“Does it mean it can’t be done? No. But it’s something
that’s going to have to be looked at very, very seriously.”
Kulick said looking at the total implications of closing
Preston Street would need to involve traffic engineers and origin and
destination studies, which means cars are stopped and drivers are asked
questions about where they are coming from and where they are going to.
He suggested temporarily closing Preston Street for
60 to 90 days to see what alternative routes traffic would take. Kulick
said costs for funding traffic engineers, destination and origin studies
and taking other related measures “would be negotiated.
“It’s going to take a lot of study before the city
could look favorably at (closing a segment of Preston Street). I certainly
understand the university’s desire to have a more pedestrian-friendly
campus, but the university needs to realize that they are part of a bigger
community and there are traffic concerns all the way around,” Kulick said.
The board is slated to formally adopt the proposed
master plan at its May 10 meeting.

• Input from campus community on CMU’s Master
  Plan

According to the proposed Campus Master
Plan, in an effort to gain input from the campus community, CMU’s Facilities
Management department created and distributed a questionnaire in July
1999. Timing of the questionnaire distribution may have affected the number
of respondents, because students were not yet on campus.
Student respondents on campus were in leadership positions,
such as residence hall representatives.
A total of 900 questionnaires were distributed; 180
– 20 percent – were returned. A breakdown of responding representatives
is as follows:

• Staff – 53.8 percent
• Administration – 21.3 percent
• Faculty – 15.4 percent
• Students – 9.5 percent

A general summary of predominantly noticeable
responses in terms of good, average and poor is as follows:

1. Instructional facilities were rated average.
2. Library facilities were rated average.
3. Research facilities were rated average to poor.
4. Athletic/ intramural facilities received the most
   noticeable positive responses (92 percent good, 7 percent average
   and 1 percent poor).
5. Open space was rated above average.
6. Residential halls were rated average.
7. Common areas were rated average.
8. Landscape spaces were rated most favorably, and elicited
   the second most noticeably positive responses.
9. Pedestrian/bike pathways were rated above average.
10. Traffic flow was rated below average.
11. Parking was rated below average to poor.
12. Accessibility to buildings was rated above average.
13. Sense of security was rated above average.

Master Development Planning Committee
members: Chair of the committee Jean Lindley, senior officer for Facilities
Management/CMU Police; Susan Conner, associate dean of the College of
Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences; Bob DeBruin, assistant
vice president of Academic Administration; Athletics Director Herb Deromedi;
John Fisher, senior officer for Residences and Auxiliary Services; Assistant
Director of CMU Police Ron Griffiths; Associate Director of Residence
Life Shaun Holtgreive; Earl Morrow, director of Facilities Operations;
John Nee, industrial and engineering technology professor; Manager of
Landscape Operations Tom Prenkert; John Robertson, history department
chair; Dean of Students Bruce Roscoe; Kevin Schwemmin, Student Government
Association president and Howell senior.
Guest input to the committee was given by Jim Duff,
project manager for Facilities Management; Kim Ellertson, chief financial
officer; Stephen Kopp, dean of the College of Health Professions; and
Linda Seestedt Stanford, assistant to the dean of the College of Health
Professions.