Construction is going faster than usual, necessitating a change in the University's Master Plan, campus officials said.
UNC planning officials presented a proposed update to the Master Plan to the Chapel Hill Town Council on Monday.
The original master plan was first ratified in 2001. "At the time, we envisioned that would last us about four to five decades," said Bruce Runberg, associate vice chancellor for facilities planning and construction.
Then the Higher Education Bond was approved by a statewide referendum, injecting $510 million into 49 projects at UNC, about one-third of the planned total. Running on this fuel, the speed of development has been fast.
"Within one decade, we would have completed over half of that master plan," he said.
School officials said few significant changes have been made.
Anna Wu, University architect and director of facilities planning, explained to the council some of the changes, which include converting plans for an amphitheater in the southeastern area of campus into open space and smoothing out the vehicular flow from South Columbia Street into the Health Area system loop. In the Bell Tower area, plans for the 1,000-space parking deck have been reduced.
"We came to the conclusion that 750 cars is really the responsible capacity of that site," she said. "We will restore the rest of the surface parking lot into an open space."
The lost spaces would be incorporated into the Craige parking deck, she said. The planners also are committed to pursuing an access road from the south of campus to Fordham Boulevard.
