- January 28th, 2007, 8:33 am
#56646
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 9183&path=
As Liberty University reaches the cusp of 10,000 residential students, it readies itself for negotiations with Lynchburg City Hall on future growth plans.
School officials say that LU will have more than 10,000 students on campus by fall.
That figure is important because the school must renew its city-issued conditional use permit (CUP) once LU’s residential population tops 10,000.
City Council put that stipulation in the school’s current CUP when it was approved in 2003.
Four years ago, LU officials told City Council that the school should top 10,000 students by 2010.
But the school’s enrollment has surged due to accelerated growth that routinely brings in an additional 1,000 students each year. LU’s residential enrollment has more than doubled since 2000.
LU officials are now predicting that the school’s enrollment could top 13,000 students by the time 2010 rolls around.
“My guess is that we’ll have more than 10,400 students by next fall,” said Jerry Falwell Jr., LU’s vice chancellor.
The school’s acquisition of the former Ericsson plant has helped it keep pace with its booming growth.
“This building made the growth possible,” Falwell Jr. said.
With the addition of the new Thomas Road Baptist Church, the former Ericsson plant now houses about 1 million square feet of floor space that can be used for educational, recreational and worship purposes.
The building contains dining halls, multiple gyms, weight rooms, a NCAA-regulation swimming pool and an indoor track.
With LU’s growth comes the challenge of finding space for dormitories, classrooms, cafeterias and other facilities, said City Manager Kimball Payne.
“Imagine twice as many students and twice as many staff on that campus right now,” Payne said. “You kind of ask the obvious questions: Where are they going to go? Where are the students going to live?”
As part of the CUP-renewal process, LU officials will draw up a master plan outlining the school’s future growth.
If the university’s enrollment stays on track with estimates, the plan and the CUP could go before City Council for approval this fall.
School and city officials have begun early talks to hammer out the details of LU’s plans for growth.
“I think it’s to everybody’s advantage to start talking about this sooner,” Payne said. “I think the city and Liberty can work together in a partnership to the benefit of both.”
About 20 percent of the floor space in the former Ericsson building, now LU’s Campus North, is used for storage, maintenance, transportation and other auxiliary services.
“This is our higher rent real estate,” said Ron Godwin, LU’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Now, we are using a lot of the space for warehousing and transportation.”
Under a new master plan, school officials could opt to build a new 80,000-square-foot freestanding facility for those non-educational departments, thus freeing about 160,000 square feet of space in Campus North for classrooms and labs.
LU has yet to build out the third and fourth floors of the DeMoss Learning Center, which would give it an additional 240,000 square feet of classroom space.
TRBC recently announced plans for a new 44,000-square-foot addition to Liberty Christian Academy, which will provide more than two dozen classrooms for LCA and the church.
LU’s 2003 CUP would have allowed 60 dorms to be built on Campus East. Only 30 have been built or are under construction. Under the new CUP, LU will have to reapply to build more than 30 dorms.
“It’s all about assessing our rate of growth and deciding where we’re going to accommodate that growth,” Godwin said. “Every area you can think of is having pretty dramatic growth on this campus.”
Falwell Jr. said LU recently commissioned aerial photos of the campus in order to help the school plot its future growth.
“That will allow the school’s engineers and planners to go back, look at the photographs and update the master plan,” he said.
Some improvements have already been discussed with city officials. Some are just in the brainstorming stage.
Falwell plans three new tunnels leading from the campus to Wards Road, a key shopping area for students.
Two of the tunnels would be big enough to allow buses and cars to drive through. The other tunnel near the Vines Center would be for pedestrians only. The school already has an existing pedestrian tunnel underneath U.S. 460.
Wards Road itself could be part of the discussions. Currently, there are no sidewalks or crosswalks to support the pedestrian traffic the university creates.
Payne said pedestrian traffic is one of the more important issues to consider.
“We are concerned about, are there steps we can take or should take to provide for a better pedestrian environment between Liberty and Wards Road and the businesses on Wards Road,” Payne said.
School planners are working on a new 1.2-mile road, which will go around the perimeter of the campus, easing congestion on the campus’ road system and opening up parts of the campus for new buildings and parking.
“That perimeter road opens up land that is just back land right now,” Falwell Jr. said.
LU and city officials also will discuss the future of the Greater Lynchburg Transit Co.’s bus service on LU’s campus, Payne said.
GLTC and LU signed a deal last year under which LU pays $75,000 a month for six GLTC buses to run on campus. The service began running earlier this month.
Payne said GLTC service could expand to include parts of Wards Road or the Candlers Mountain Road shopping centers. Currently, LU is running its own buses to the Wards shopping centers.
The new CUP could also include plans for a new 20,000-seat convocation center, which would allow all the school’s residential students to meet three days a week.
“We’ve already outgrown the Vines Center,” Falwell Jr. said.
He said construction of a new convocation center is at least five years away.
The school also has offered to donate land and become a primary tenant if Lynchburg or Campbell County would build a publicly owned civic center near the campus.
A civic center would replace the school’s need for a new convocation center.
Last year, Falwell Jr. announced plans for a gravity park, including an artificially surfaced ski slope and tubing area, on the side of Candlers Mountain. The school has explored the idea of building an IMAX theater in an existing tower in the former Ericsson building.
Late in 2005, the school opened the LaHaye Ice Center, which is used by the school’s hockey team and is available for public skating.
“These proposed recreational facilities are key to our recruiting efforts,” Falwell Jr. said. “We’re committed to making them a reality. But core facilities like classroom, dorms, parking lots and roads will always be our priority.”
- By Purple Haize
- By ECC29