The University of St. Thomas plans two new academic buildings for the arts and sciences and major increases to housing and parking over the next 10 years.
A $300 million, 14-project master plan for the school’s St. Paul campus is being circulated to neighborhood groups, which will study the particulars in before university trustees vote on Nov. 16-17.
The university has not released a construction timeline, which will be developed throughout 2017 based in part on fundraising projections and borrowing capacity. Administrators have indicated that master planning is a visioning process, and “there is no ironclad guarantee that all of the projects will proceed,” said Doug Hennes, a St. Thomas spokesman, in a written announcement.
In the statement, President Julie Sullivan called the plan a worthy investment “in this university, in this neighborhood and in this city.”
Hennes said the master plan preserves an open, parklike area along Mississippi River Boulevard and Goodrich Avenue, as neighbors had advocated for. To add two new housing structures along Grand Avenue, however, the buildings would need to be higher than the 40 feet allowed under the requirements detailed in the 2004 conditional-use permit. Two more levels on the Anderson Parking facility would require a height modification to the 1990 special conditional-use permit, which allows a 60-foot building.
The 14 proposed construction projects are detailed online at stthomas.edu. The plan can be viewed on large poster boards that will be placed in the foyer area of O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library in St. Paul and in Keffer Library in Opus Hall on the Minneapolis campus.
St. Thomas retained Hastings + Chivetta, which helped design the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex several years ago, to help prepare the master plan. Details include relocating historic Loras Hall, which sits off Summit Avenue, 100 feet to the west and closer to the St. Paul Seminary, allowing more space for a new 137,000-square-foot science and engineering building next to O’Shaughnessy Hall. Some 300 new parking spaces in two new levels would sit atop the Anderson parking facility.
A new academic building for the arts spanning 65,000 square feet and 290 underground parking spaces would be located on Summit Avenue between McNeely Hall and Finn Street. The building would require the demolition of the Summit Avenue Classroom Building, a duplex used for undergraduate housing, and the 30 and 32 Finn buildings, which are used for institutional advancement staff.
Overall, the university’s parking inventory would increase by 631 spaces (24 percent) if all of the projects in the plan are built. About half would sit under four residential buildings and the arts building, and half would be in the new parking facility levels.
The master plan was scheduled to be discussed Tuesday evening by a campus development committee of the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Committee, followed by the full committee on Oct. 18 and again on Nov. 15. The Macalester-Groveland Community Councilwill review it Oct. 13.
The Union Park District Council’s land use committee will review the plan at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17.
North end of campus
Along Summit Avenue
South end of campus
