Page 10 - UD Research Magazine Vol5-No1

Revised master plan unveiled
It will certainly take decades, maybe even a century, until UD’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus is complete. But the 272-acre campus—a former Chrysler auto-
motive assembly plant—already is radiating with activity, with a health sciences complex now open and energy research underway.
by Andrea Boyle Tippett
UD officials shared a draft of the re- vised master plan for the STAR Campus at two public forums this past November. The plan builds upon the site’s original master plan, created in 2011, better illustrating the vision and clearly outlining guidelines for development.
“We have an asset here that is going to be working for us for a very, very, very long time,” said Alan Brangman, vice president for facilities, real estate and auxiliary services. “It’s important to have the framework established.”
Brangman extensively described the framework but could not easily point to a comparable campus elsewhere—and for good reason. The site will not be a typical office park, with individual buildings drifting in a sea of parking lots, he said. Nor will it be a replica of The Green on the UD campus, or duplicate slices of other college campuses.
Buildings will be erected in a pedes- trian friendly urban fashion, with doors that open directly onto sidewalks. Parking is initially contained to two parking lots
along one edge of the plot, with future additional parking planned for garages. “The real key here is mixed use,”
Brangman said.
While the campus comprises 272
acres, the master plan (shown on the next spread) focuses on just 65 acres in the northeast corner, flanked by train tracks and South College Avenue on the north and east, respectively. These acres represent the initial area of development.
Mockups of the site show streets built on a grid pattern color-coded by use: orange for research, yellow for residential, red for retail and more. A deep purple area marks the intended location of a new train station, to replace the current one serviced by Amtrak and SEPTA.
Green spaces infiltrate the plan for a campus built on land that once housed a Chrysler vehicle manufacturing facility. No spot in the designated area would be more than a five-minute walk from a park space. A long green expanse on the west- ern edge represents the location of Silver
8 | UD RESEARCH
Alan Brangman,
UD's vice president for facilities, real estate
and auxiliary services, has responsibility for campus design, construction and maintenance and, working with senior leadership, the strategic development of the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus.
EVAN KRAPE