Community Provides Final Input on K-State Campus Master Plan

A vision board of campus showing the potential campus master plan. Courtesy: Emily Willi

A final town hall meeting was held Tuesday, February 11th on the K-State Manhattan Campus for the K-State Community to put their final input on the Campus Master Plan. Neil Kessler, who is the Senior Principal with the Smithgroup and has led the meetings for the past eleven months, described this process as three phases.

"The first phase was really listening to what you wanted and what your thoughts were, Then [the second phase] we sort of analyzed campus and looked at different ways to put it back together."

"This final phase is what they have brought together as one idea from all of the input from the past meetings." Kessler described.

K-State students look over a board with the preliminary master plan design.

The meeting took place at the Alumni Banquet room full of community members who wanted to put their final input on the design. Mia Wells, a graduate student in public administration is one of those community members who have been keeping track of these meetings. "I came to the Master Plan meeting because I really care about accessibility."

She took several notes on the plans they proposed and said "Something positive I’ll say about the plan is that creating the engaged navigation through campus is really cool and I hope those spaces will allow people to move freely, but my biggest concern is the inside of those buildings."

The engaged navigation being Smithgroups proposal to take away most roads on campus and replace them with bike lanes and walkways to improve connectivity. While the campus is already walkable, they want to make the campus even more friendly for bike riders and people who walk between classes. 

A board design of how the master plan will improve campus navigation.

The expansion of bike lanes and walkways brings additional plans to expand the outdoor areas of campus as an opportunity for students to engage with the landscape. The idea is to lengthen Campus Creek to run through the middle of campus creating entirely new spaces for students to gather.

Along the side of the creek will be "Wellness Loops" which are two separate loops students can walk on campus that would include new social spaces and potentially a wellness garden as well as an outdoor fitness space. 

A board design of how the campus master plan could change the landscape.

With the removal of most roads to make way for these outdoor spaces, a few parking lots would be removed to make room for more research buildings for the school. The idea of more research buildings was brought up multiple times throughout the presentation and I wanted to know exactly how these multiple new research buildings would be utilized.

John Perry, another Senior Principal of the SmithGroup was able to give insight on why the majority of new buildings will be research hubs. "Engineering needs more high bay research space, exactly where that goes is up to the University. Another example is knowing that we need additional space for nuclear engineering so that could be an opportunity for that type of research to take place."

Rather than putting research facilities on the north edge of campus, they wanted to put these new buildings close to the campus core which would mean removing and relocating parking areas on campus.

A board design of how the campus master plan could create more equitable learning environments.

Kessler stresses the importance of keeping K-State’s heritage alive and integrating it into the new areas and renovations being done. "We’re really thinking about Anderson Hall and Ahearn Field House as real opportunities to invest in those facilities." Modeled after a similarly sized facility at North Carolina University, Ahearn will be renovated to be utilized as a building that can host conferences, UPC events, or potential conventions held at the University.

While they do have small changes they want to make to Anderson Hall, the main focus is the outside. The road in front of Anderson, Mid-Campus Drive, is one of the roads they intend to remove in this new plan to make way for a plaza that can be used for seating and small outdoor events.

A board design of how the campus master plan would invest in the heritage of K-State.

The trajectory of time for some of these changes is upwards of ten years and beyond. The plan discussed at this meeting is still preliminary and not final in any way. The opinions received at this meeting will be used to make a final plan that will be presented in September of this year.

Read more about the Campus Master Plan and watch the full town hall video at K-State's website.