News

East campus mall focus of committee

Incoming freshmen in the year 2009 will walk onto an entirely different University of Wisconsin campus. The future remodeling of the East Campus Mall was the topic of Monday night’s Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee, trying to link up Lake Mendota to Regent Street with a pedestrian thoroughfare.

“The plan is to [extend] green space from the Lake Mendota terrace at the Union, past the SERF to new dorms on Park and Regent streets,” Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said.

This project has been in the works for some time.

“The concept of an east campus pedestrian mall has been around for almost 100 years,” Gary Brown, director of planning and landscape architecture, said.

According to Brown, the overall goal for the East Campus Mall is to connect student activity areas such as the Memorial Union, the Student Services Center in the Red Gym, the Elvehjem Art Museum, the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Southeast residence halls and the Kohl Center.

The project will redesign seven blocks along the Murray Street corridor beginning by the Red Gym and extending toward Park and Regent streets. It addresses pedestrian safety issues, vehicular service access and campus entrance gateways.

Bill Petak, Brown’s partner, pointed out that to make this project attractive, there would need to be a recognizable theme throughout, such as flower gardens. One such theme discussed was “a pallet of four to five trees that will be repeated throughout the mall area.” Standard overhead lighting would also be used throughout the corridor, Petak added.

Once completed, the East Campus Mall will provide an area for programmed events, space for public art and sculpture displays and a locale for people to interact, Brown said.

Currently, private unnamed donors have secured funds for the project.

The construction of a residence hall on Park and Regent in mid-October will start the East Campus Plan, and the destruction of the Ogg Hall towers will follow in order to make room for future developments and the East Campus Mall.